EVERY BREATH YOU TAKE -PART FIVE-
by Starskylicious
Summary: A story of silence, hurt, love and redemption with a glimpse of hope and a promise of a future. WARNING: Physical and mental torture.


**ACT 27 –THE ENVELOPE-**

"Hutch," Dobey frowned.

The manila envelope was perfectly laid over the desktop, over Starsky's side, with Hutch's name written on its front. Since Starsky had been gone, nobody had taken his place, neither in the Precinct or at his desk or by Hutch's side. Nowhere. Thus, the desk, even their lives, were empty, vacant since the brunet had left Metro over one month ago. No one had ever dared to take his place in the Squadrom, besides the fact that supposedly the seat was being reserved for Hutch's future partner, whom neither anyone wanted to be. So the desk was immaculate lately and the envelope there was so visible that seemed to be highlighted among the rest.

Only the Piggy Bank remained as a silent witness of the desolation; it was like a soldier guarding and now, it also was that envelope.

It was 9 AM in the morning, and Dobey had just arrived from Memorial.

Soon before, he had gone again to the Hospital for checking on Starsky's status. He had an interview with the Board since his Officer had been scheduled for the fourth round of chemo, with a new drug Cisplatin starting on next Saturday the 27 August, and they had to notify Dobey.

He had been talking to Caroline too; he had grown very fond of her. The girl had never left his officer's side during the three days he was hospitalized because of the dehydration. And after that. In fact, she had replaced Huggy by Starsky's side at Sam's beach house, and she even would be with him in the fourth round of this new batch of drugs. She had told him that she had taken a leave of absence from her work, just to be with him; also that she would take care of him.

He liked that.

She had told the Captain that she was pretty optimistic since Starsky was slowly but steadily recovering, despite the terminal diagnosis. She said that he was feeling better in fact, that they had shared two weeks in such a good shape that she was euphoric about the beginning of the new drugs.

So was he.

Anyway, like an experienced man he was, he realized that the young and gorgeous doctor had a crush on his friend, that prevented her from thinking clearly, and it showed. She was completely crazy with Starsky and after having talked with Sam, he thought, he should take what she said with a grain of salt.

Perhaps, love was the reason she fantasized with recoveries.

Anyway, he was starting to like her, since he thought that Caroline was like a blessed angel to the brunet.

"_At least something good could be rescued from all this,"_ he shook his head at the memory.

And he even smiled dearly, too.

He couldn't avoid but feel surprised about Starsky's charm, even at times like these. The man was still quite a spirit. He thought that it didn't matter the condition his officer was in, Starsky always managed to put a smile on his face.

He entered his Office.

Twice, during the next hour, he opened his door to the Squadron, searching for Hutch. But nothing so far. As it had happened lately, he knew that Hutch would come to work around 10 AM in the morning. Hopefully. And neither the state the blond-haired man was in the previous day, made Dobey expect something different to happen.

Even though Hutch had shown a slight improvement during the last day when he met him at Memorial, the long, lonely nights seemed to have kidnaped his beloved detective of his healthy routines. Lately, he seemed to be trapped in buzz and melancholy too. Throughout the night, until dawn, chances were that melancholic had been the way he was in during the recent days.

Therefore, every morning had been slow to start, lately.

But today would be the day. Sam was going to talk to Starsky, and they would schedule their meeting for next day. Tomorrow, the man with blond hair and his companion would face at last.

So the captain had left his office twice during the morning to see if the detective had arrived.

But unfortunately, sixty minutes had gone, and although he was desirous and anxious, he had always returned empty.

Only the old Piggy Bank was still there, but no Hutch. No Hutch but that envelope which was still there… defiant, every time the Captain had opened the door.

He didn't like that envelope.

Earlier, when he arrived at the Precinct and found it, he had curiously gripped the strange object. _'Hutch,'_ he had read the five big letters mutely while he lifted it, wondering. The familiarity nagged him, the special intimacy was very awkward as well, and it bothered him, he couldn't help it. But then, he realized that everyone called him 'Hutch' at Metro… "_so why should I be so restless?"_

However, the envelope disturbed him.

And he was curious.

Nosey at least, though he didn't dare to open it.

Before leaving, before coming back to his office for the last time, he turned back to the desk and grabbed the envelope again, and scratched his head like thinking. He groped it; he sniffed it. It was heavy, and it looked like there wasn't just paper inside at the touch as if it had something else, something hard as cardboard or maybe some pictures. Therefore, since Lieutenant Anderson was standing there from the get-go, next to the percolator pouring himself a mug of coffee, distractedly, he asked him about it, while showing him the package.

"Who let this on here, Chuck? Do you know?"

"Dunno, Harold, when I arrived here at six it was already there."

He put it back on the desktop.

This time at Hutch's side and entered his office.

Fifteen minutes after 10 am, completely scruffy, and even messy; a bearded Hutch came into the Police Headquarters.

He was holding a bag of greasy donuts.

Weird. But then again, everything was rare in him lately, after Starsky.

********************S&H********************

The slow process of Hutch's transformation was coming to its end.

It had begun even before Gunther, more than four years ago, and had experienced a standby when Starsky was riddled, recovered and came back from the dead. As if that space of time in which the old Hutch had reappeared, during his partner's miraculous recovery, had only been an illusion.

The last throes a fish out of water could give before his death.

That was what it was happening.

Hutch's ending.

Hutch was dying.

Since the day before when he met his Captain at the Hospital, Dobey's words echoed in his head, and he couldn't take them out of his mind. He had been with Sam, and Huggy and the doctor had told him that today they were going to meet again and maybe, that Starsky would be there too. However, he couldn't find any peace of mind. Though the news were promising, the possibility of another rejection haunted him, and he spent all night lost in his bottle. Hutch was frightened that yet another disappointment could happen to him; it had been that way lately, and he was scared. His moods were up and down, systematically. He just couldn't help it. His fellow workers never seemed to know which one of the many Hutches would present.

Without Starsky, he had become a sullen man, solitary, renegade and obsessed with the only intent to unravel the real reason of what had happened to his partner.

That was his goal in his life.

Lately, all his energy was focused on investigating who Caroline was and the reason she had stolen him his friend. That was what he thought. The last day that they were together even though Starsky never had voiced her name aloud; even though he had never said that he was leaving with her, that was what Hutch had wanted to believe.

So he blamed her.

He hated the woman.

Therefore in the last fifty-five days, since Starsky had gone, he had done nothing but trying to find her. He always had come back empty and refueled all that resentment that had changed him so much.

That much that it looked like he had even learned to hate.

To hate Rachel, for being old and his partner's beloved and loving mother, and for asking him to stay by her side.

He hated her.

Caroline, for being young and his fiancée, and having taken him out of his life, above all.

He hated her.

And the very New York… The damn big city that was so far away, a country far, so tempting and thrilling that no city was a match for it.

He hated it.

He hated them all.

All of them, except Starsky.

Although he tried and tried hard, he could not hate Starsky.

He felt very abandoned.

It seemed that his previous life had been buried. The radiant and the bright man he used to be, full of goodness; the White Knight, he used to be, was also buried and had gone. Neither Dobey nor Huggy nor Sam, no one, could rescue him from the pit in which he was immersed and where he increasingly was sinking every day, more and more.

He was suffering.

Worst of all, he suffered in silence, without disturbing.

His Nordic nature, his controlled demeanor, prevented him from taking out his anger, his pain. He could not even cry, although he was prone to do it.

He only felt betrayed. Moreover, dry, and dead.

Little he knew that next day would be the day he would reunite with his partner.

Dobey was waiting for him...

********************S&H********************

"Hutch?" Dobey opened the door of his office to the Squad room. He found the blond; he was sat at his desk, with the envelope in his hand and said, "I need to talk to you."

The blond looked up over the desk and off from the manila envelope, which he had not decided to open yet. He put it back on the table, sighed, indifferently. He stood up with an effort and headed to his Captain's Office, reluctantly.

"You saw that envelope… Have you opened it? What's in it?" Dobey asked, curious.

"I didn't yet."

"Weird, isn't it?" Dobey frowned.

"Yeah, maybe. Who cares? What do you need, Cap?" Hutch said, serious while sipping a glass of water he had taken from the water station.

"Hey, you were fine yesterday! What's going on today? Too much booze yesterday's night, Hutch?" Dobey asked.

"The necessary," He answered bitterly, "But I don't feel like talking now. I'm not in the mood. You called me. What do you want?"

Undoubtedly he had had a bad night, so maybe, talking about work helped him recover, so Dobey said, "Today is 25 August."

"Yeah, and?" Hutch took another sip of water from the paper cup, and Dobey observed.

"Hutchinson, you should have been removed from Parry's case when... Well, you know, when Starsky left. Since then, you did not take any single step forward in the investigation!" The Captain shouted. He was also nervous.

"Parry? Who the hell is he? I don't give a damn about Parry at the moment. Why are you talking about the wacko right now?"

"I think, to my knowledge, that for the last tracks you and your partner had been following, you had speculated that something would happen the 28th August, right?"

The blond-haired man laughed, utterly sad and he changed his expression almost instantly, repented. "Right. So, what?" Hutch said defiantly.

"So what? At least you could try to honor Starsky, that's what!" The Captain said angrily and immediately regretted his words but kept going, "On August 28th Hutch, for Christ's sake! Something's gonna happen on August 28th."

"And it will... It'll be my birthday, you forgot?" He laughed foolishly.

"You can't stop being so funny, can you?" Dobey said, derailed.

"Your wish is my command, Captain." he said cynically.

"Hutch, come on!" the Captain changed his voice for a more sympathetic tone, "Let your sarcasm aside... The world didn't end the day that Starsky left," he shrugged and raised his eyebrows.

An endless silence preceded Hutch's next words.

"Didn't it?" He stood up and stared through the window.

Hutch's eyes full of pain almost made Dobey doubt whether he should continue hiding the truth from him, or if he should tell him all the truth at that same moment. Maybe not what was going on with Starsky but at least that the brunet was going to meet him as they had planned, and Sam had already told him. But the Captain scrubbed his face and his head and snorted, holding back his words. He felt overwhelmed by the guilt; the whole situation was a burden. He pouted; Dobey felt sorrowful. For him, for Hutch, for Starsky. Nevertheless, he knew if it would be a perfect time for Hutch to find out what was going on with Starsky, it was not going to be this. Neither he the right person to tell him.

It wouldn't be proper, and he repented.

He thought that maybe he should wait for a few hours. Starsky was waiting for him at the threshold of another batch of chemo. He knew the news would be enough devastating but somehow, he also knew he should respect his officer's decision though he couldn't find the right words to say. The right feelings to feel. He thought better of it. He thought about another strategy. He was going to give him an assignment, and later, that same day he was going to tell him that Starsky was expecting him, at the beach house. That would be the right time, he was sure. Hopefully, the two partners were going to meet, and It was going to happen shortly. The Captain calmed down at the realization.

Dobey sensed that they all had achieved that Starsky overcome the resistance of the walls that he had built around him, which as he grew weak, were increasingly growing weaker too.

He was sure that the brunet would tell Hutch.

And he knew that he would do it today.

Finally, he would wait for that to happen.

Caroline was heading in that same direction. He had already talked to her. She was turning into a very particular and significant woman in Starsky's life. But aside from the fact that she was starting to be a central person, she also knew that no one could ever replace Hutch in the brunet's heart. That's why she had insisted, everybody had insisted. He wouldn't tell him, not now. He wasn't strong enough. Only Starsky could, the brunet had been right. He hadn't had the nerve to tell him before; he didn't have it now either. He only feared that it could be too late either for Starsky or Hutch… but he would wait, as he had done until now. He should talk about the case, only about the investigation.

"Son, there's nothing we can do to change this, at least not for now. So please, on behalf of what you have been, what WE have been together, would you please tell me where do you think the next attack will be?" he said.

Nonetheless his words, the Captain realized that something had changed in the flaxen-haired man's face. Hutch stared dumbfounded for some time; he fixed his stare on his Commanding Officer's eyes and recovered his center with his eyes full of tears. Dobey's words had got to him, and he realized that it was true. Starsky and they deserved it. He nodded reflexively and said contrite, "I'm sorry, Cap, I wish I knew, but well..." he sighed. Sometimes it hurt him remember. Always hurt him remember, but he did anyway, he recalled their last findings of Parry's case and told his friend. "According to the final investigation" he smiled lovingly at the memory "We - Starsky was sure that the next assassination was going to be perpetrated in a place with a Y in its name… yeah," he nodded and laughed at Dobey's incredulous look, "That's it!"

"What?"

Hutch shrugged. "Well, it's a long story, Cap. We had this strange theory. We thought that all those crimes were sort of connected and that they had a message as well. That the next killing would be on August 28th, and in a neighborhood whose name starts with the letter Y." He opened his eyes and his arms, though firmly he also was hesitating. "Problem was, Cap that… we were just trying to find out which one that neighborhood could be when he left and then, I didn't give a damn!"

"A district whose name starts with a Y? A letter Y…? Dammit! Nothing comes to my head. I just don't realize either. Anyway," the rotund man snapped his fingers, "why don't you go to City Hall and ask for the local governmental services a detailed list of the county's neighborhoods, Hutch?" Dobey suggested. "By midday, you should be back, and then we can talk better!" "_That's when I'm gonna tell him that his buddy's waiting for him,"_ Dobey thought.

"Yeah… that's an excellent idea, Cap!" Hutch smiled promisingly "I'll go at lunch time, and I'll keep you posted."

********************S&H********************

Hutch came out from the Office and headed straight to the Commissary.

The other Hutch. The positive and hopeful one, the confident and optimist Hutch. Starsky's partner, the one whom he had always been, went to the station's buffet.

It was almost 12 AM, and he would eat something before leaving and go to City Hall.

On his way downstairs he met Edith Dobey, she was with Rosie.

"Hello, Rosie Posey."

"Uncle Hutch!" the 14 years girl clung to his neck, as the little kid she used to be, hugging him. "Hey, you look sad, Hutch. I've just missed one of my uncles; I don't plan to miss another... Please? We need you. Take care of yourself, will you?"

He gave the girl a loving glance and nodded, looking at Edith, who at the same time said, "She's just said everything on my behalf, Hutch. Starsky, whom I'm sure he cares, wouldn't like to see you like this, neither do us."

"Yeah. Starsky's absence is very shocking to me, his departure I mean, but I'll get used to it. I promise you, ladies, which I'll try to do my damn best."

"_The Dobeys are right,"_ he thought.

He should start his recovering at some point, take the reins of his life again. There was nothing they could do now to avoid suffering the way he was suffering, but he had his job, he still had it.

"_At least I still have it; the only thing I have left is my job… and my friends and the citizens to protect."_, he thought. And that was a good reason to try to survive. That's why he had to find Parry before it was too late. He owed that to Starsky. The Captain had been right. "_Maybe when Starsky finds out, who knows? Would he return to me from the other side of the world?"_ Maybe...

At 1.30 PM, he left Metro.

He caught the envelope with his name written on it. He would open it later at home if any.

He went to City Hall to start yet another clue to the old investigation.

He didn't know why he felt so ill-at-ease because of that envelope.

It took him four hours to find out what he was searching, but he finally did. That little lost and recondite neighborhood near Hollywood Blvd., so close to Starsky's Apartment up in Ridgway.

Yucca.

The Yucca Corridor, which had slipped into decline and where most of the hotels in the area had become flophouses, full of homeless.

Yucca.

Where the only building, which had kept some dignity, was the Hollywood Masonic Temple. Though, by the time, neither the Masons were longer using it.

They had split in '82 while the Boulevard was becoming an eyesore. That little dangerous zone that was the land of many of the sex stores and porn theaters, which had moved recently there, followed by a flow of prostitution and drugs. The neighborhood that lately had been the concern of the Authorities since the crime rate had doubled the rest of the City until the cops began to crack down there.

That was the only neighborhood whose name began with the letter Y.

He stopped while he was reading the latest journalistic chronicle of the area, which gave an account of the destruction at the end of '82 that had suffered the Francis Howard Goldwyn Library located on Ivar Ave. The place had been vandalized and set on fire. Undoubtedly, the neighborhood had been taken over by the gangs. The arson had destroyed about 68,000 books.

Half of the history of Hollywood had gone missing with them.

"_Interesting,"_ Hutch thought. "_Another Library, another arson… what a coincidence!"_

The only neighborhood named after the letter Y in LA met all the requirements to be the scene of yet another tragedy.

And he had finally found it.

Hutch felt certain relief.

He would work restlessly until Sunday to lay out the operation.

The 28 August was just around the corner so he would go immediately to the Station. He rushed to the Main Entrance of the City Hall building, and then he thought better, and he decided to go home, to Venice first. Luckily, the neighborhood was small enough to make a proper surveillance.

He was going to take a shower, he would change his clothes, eat something and then he would get back to the Precinct.

"_It was going to be a long, long night,_" he thought.

********************S&H********************

Hutch parked his Datsun in front of Chez Helene.

He got out of the car and in doing so; he saw the envelope in the back seat. He doubted for a moment whether left it there or not, but then, retraced his steps, opened the door again and took it. He trotted up the stairs of Venice and entered his apartment. He left the envelope on the coffee table, took off his jacket, his holster. The clothes on the path, throwing them as always, off to the bathroom and opened the shower.

The warm, comforting water renewed his energy.

He supported both hands on the wall of the showerhead, letting the flow embrace his body. He closed his eyes and felt the powerful water jet on his neck that almost numbed him.

He couldn't stop thinking about Starsky.

"God! Why?" he said aloud, tired sick of feeling empty. "_If the water could be memories, dragging the pain."_ He thought, even desired it. Sometimes he thought that it would be better to forget him. However, he did not want to be carried away, not far from Starsky at least.

"No."

He wanted to remember him, always. His loving presence, his energy, his voice. The way his life had changed since he left, and how it had changed the moment he entered in it fifteen years ago. How much he missed him! And he missed himself too.

The acute pain of his absence in his body wasn't as painful as those blows Diana had given him in that same shower all those years ago. Only these stabs hurt him more; they were worse. They were more throbbing since Starsky would not be there to protect him and comfort him and take care of him, afterward.

How much he missed Starsky, his friend? Too much.

He closed the tap, left the bathtub and looked at his reflection in the mirror behind the fog that filled every little space. "_It was time to get rid of the beard and the fucking mustache,"_ he thought.

Nothing good had brought him since they had crowded his face. He took the razor and slowly saw the resurgence of the new old Hutch reflected in the blurred mirror, his noble face. The sweet boy's face appeared hidden behind the haze.

"Today, it's gonna be a new beginning. Today, a new cycle will begin, tear… and leaving everything behind. Starsky, I promise…" he signaled to himself "I'll do it for you, buddy." He said aloud to his image reflected.

With the towel knotted around his waist, he hurried out of the bathroom to prepare one of his healthy shakes.

He would not drink beer.

He would not drink Bourbon.

Not anymore.

He put the blender, turned on the TV. The channel was tuned in... Who cared? He didn't listen anyway. He entered his room; he found his jeans and blue plaid shirt, the one his partner had given him for his birthday the previous year. He even put some aftershave and combed his hair, his increasingly sparse hair. "_Who could be like Starsk? Such a mane you have, buddy…"_ He thought and laughed.

He felt clean, lighter, and alive.

Sort of.

One hour had passed since he had arrived in Venice, and he didn't want to waste any more time. So he took the picture that was on the dresser, the best picture of them together, the one where they were hugging on the roof of the unforgettable Torino and said aloud again. "Buddy, I promise that today's the day I'll start to bringing you back."

He left the room with a smile and the promise that stayed lingering in the air.

He poured himself the shake. He leaned back on the couch and as he drank, suddenly he got startled by the 'Bankrupt' whistling that was coming from the TV set while Pat Sajak's voice came into the air… 'Welcome to the Wheel of Fortune.'

Another thing that reminded him of his buddy.

"Damn! Wheel of Fortune… Of all things! Why is it that everything reminds me of you?" He laughed at the warm feeling, "_another signal,"_ he thought and took the envelope in his hands watching it, thinking that he could always open it later.

But then, he thought better of it.

He was not going to keep putting off things, and so he did.

Today he was going to start doing the right things again.

********************S&H********************

"Hello, David."

When Starsky opened the beach house's door, he surprised. He didn't expect to see Ian. Not again after what had happened the day before.

"Hi, uh… What are you doing here! I - You," He could feel it; something was wrong, very wrong.

"You are not happy to see me, dear David?" There it was, that voice again. Filthy, gooey.

"Oh, uh, I was just waiting for someone else… uh…" Starsky said, visibly upset at that point. He started feeling agitated, he already couldn't breathe.

Ian started getting closer and closer.

"Stand back, please," the brunet warned him and managed to say, tried weakly to stop him and raised his hand toward him, but it was no use. The man put his right hand on his neck, pressed his shirt's collar with all his force, and with his left hand punched him in the chest, straight into his solar plexus.

In the center of his cancer.

Starsky fell.

The man closed the door.

Ian took a long time looking at the sick man. Starsky was barely breathing his futile gasps. The attacker did nothing but stare at him, undressed him with concupiscent eyes. After a while and when he realized that the policeman was starting to recuperate, bloodily he asked him.

"What happened, David?" He smiled perversely and continued… "Are you worried about something? You weren't expecting me?" Ian crouched and put his hand on Starsky's heaving chest again, only this time caressing him. The assailant unbuttoned the top three buttons of Starsky's shirt, slowly and almost lustfully and stroked his breastbone that rose and fell wildly. The brunet was scared and felt increasingly agitated. He was sprawled on the floor helpless, and he couldn't move.

"I was planning to take a walk with you, handsome. Do you remember our walks to the Pier?" Ian was still caressing him in the chest though he was applying more and more pressure, fiercely, lasciviously. "This time I planned to go just somewhere else."

Every single minute, Ian was pressing him even more brutally, almost crushing the sick man's chest.

Starsky tried to dodge him.

"Oh no, David!" He angrily grabbed his jaw sharply and warned him with a wordless gaze and Starsky stared at him terrified. He released the grip on his face and said, "David! That's a beautiful name you have. David… have I told you how much I like it?"

Ian started touching the brunet's mouth, his lips. "Repeat with me: David." he invited.

Starsky couldn't talk, he was breathless and paralyzed.

"Only a little walk, sugar. Just you and me. It's been a hell of a lot of time I have this desire for you, and tonight's the night, you know?" Ian began touching his own private parts, erotically. "Oh, David! You make me very horny, you see? So now, you're going to stand up, and you're going to walk with me through that door and toward my car, okay? We're going to take a little ride, together. You're going to enjoy this time, my dear, but first, only as a precautionary move, don't get me wrong please? but give me your cuffs. I'd like to put your cuffs on."

Starsky was horrified.

He had already told Ian before that, as a gift, when they decided to get back to the Force, the City had entrusted them a pair of cuffs. Two pairs of golden cuffs, one to his partner, the other one for him, as a symbol of their tireless search for justice. So Ian knew that he had the cuffs, and he had no choice but to give them to him. Starsky also knew that he had no chance to overcome the moment either. He realized he wasn't strong enough, so he should cooperate and then try to make his way out. Somehow.

So he let Ian help him to get up though his chest was killing him, and he stumbled. He couldn't.

"I got you; I got you. Take your breath before and try to relax, breathe, you just breathe, honey, I just need you to do it." Ian encouraged him.

"I - I can't. You know that I can't!" were Starsky's first words.

"Yes, you can, my love, you can. I will help you if you need it. You don't have to be scared, David… I'm going to take away all the suffering from you. I'm gonna help you get rid of your pain. You rely on me?"

Starsky nod, asking for mercy.

"Good! So come with me."

Ian gave him his hand and helped him to rise from the floor.

"Where are your cuffs, David?" Starsky signaled him to the second drawer in the dresser, Ian put them on his wrists and started slowly walking out of the house.

They entered the same car he had used for the first ride from Memorial.

It seemed like nobody had searched for it.

Ian helped Starsky to sit in the back seat, and he squatted beside him and unexpectedly gave the brunet a punch in the jaw, knocking him out. Starsky slumped in the seat, defeated. He had done nothing so far. But Ian thought that he couldn't take the risk that he decides to try something while he was driving. Besides, since he was undergoing the chemo treatments, and his nose started bleeding profusely, Ian knew that the lack of red cells would make him stay at his complete mercy.

And he liked it a lot.

"I'm sorry, my love" it was all he said.

He sat Starsky in the back seat of the car. He secured the lax and unconscious body to staying straight with the seat belt to avoid any suspicion and headed to The Lido.

It was half-past three in the afternoon, and he had little time to prepare everything.

"_Oh My God! I will enjoy this too much!"_ He thought.

********************S&H********************

When Hutch opened the envelope, he stayed frozen.

Inside it, there was a white folder with a brochure. Something related to one Medical Centre.

He didn't understand.

There were medical schedules and appointments. Diagnosis, prescriptions, and application forms. His partner's name was written all over in those documents.

He thought he was going to faint. He could not breathe; something was smothering him.

"What's this?" he said aloud.

He decided he was going to start again from the very beginning; it had to be a mistake.

"Easy Hutch, calm, stay calm!" He tried to calm down and started from the beginning reading the hurtful words silently.

'The City of Hope Duarte, Cancer Research Hospital.' He closed his eyes.

"Cancer?"

'Memorial Hospital, June 13. David Michael Starsky, 40 years old. A male patient in acute respiratory failure…' he continued reading.

"June 13? Oh My God, Starsky?"

'Gunshot victim, three bullets, wounded cardiac arrest… Goodman, 1979. Weak pleural tissue, scarred lungs. Pneumothorax, V-Fib, Gunther…'

He looked through the two next pages frantically. "What?"

'Biopsy, CT scans, PET scans. Metastasized'

"Meta… Oh, My God!"

One more page, madly. He couldn't keep calm.

'Small Cell Lung Cancer, Stage 4. Dr. John Murray, M.D., Ph.D. June 21. Duarte, CA 91010...'

"Lung? Lung Cancer? This Couldn't be! What, what this means? Where's the phone? Gimme the phone", he shouted to no one. He stood up, tripped over the coffee table and sat again. The folder still in his shaky hands. He was trembling. He made a bun with the last sheet. "Bullshit." Thousands of tears fell from his eyes. He rubbed them. He repented, he should keep reading; he disarmed the roll of paper and stretched the sheet. He continued.

Another page, a timetable.

'Jun, 24; Jul, 8; Jul, 22. Three rounds of Chemotherapy, Immunosuppressed, 1st batch Etoposide, Methotrexate, Palliative Cares, Cell counts.'

"Starsk?" 'Needles, IV's. Morphine, and death'. "Death.?"

A stab, he felt a sharp pain in his heart. He kept looking, reading. More ultra-pink application forms and the last page that ripped his soul.

'DNR, Life-Sustaining Treatment. Next of kin, Kenneth Hutchinson. Partner'.

"Partner…?"

'Diagnosis: SCLC, extensive. Stage 4. Unlikely to be cured. Prognosis: Ten to Twelve Months of survival from diagnosis. No surgery'.

"Survival…Unlikely to be cured." "Unlikely to be cured?" he said aloud.

'Surgery is recommended when there is just one tumor only. Tumor and Cancer cells have spread to other and different parts of the body'.

"The body…"

'Treatment goals will aim at symptom relief since remission is not possible at this stage.'

"Remission is not possible."

"Remission is not possible." he voiced his fear.

'According to Pleural Tap and Chest X-Ray, PET scan and Mri Scan Bronchoscopy taken on David Michael Starsky.'

"David Michael Starsky. Buddy?"

'Cancer has spread to the lymph nodes, chest. Both tumors have 5 cm each and are located at the base of the right lung, according to the image. Signed, Dr. Caroline Novak, M.D., Ph.D. Hope, June 20th, 1983'.

"Dr. Caroline Nov…"

He finally realized and said aloud "Ca - Caroline? Oh no, Starsky!" He couldn't understand what was happening, and he began to mourn and cry heartbreakingly, his head was exploding.

"Oh, My God!, Starsky no, buddy!. Oh, My God… What's this? Oh, my God. No, no... No! This is not true. Who can be this sick to make this prank? This is not true! It can't be true. Oh! For Christ's sake, help me, God, this can't be true."

He stood up.

He started walking in circles around the room like a caged beast.

"Bullshit! This is bullshit." He yelled. He heard the phone ringing. "Go to hell!" he shouted. He tossed the folder desperately and then sat down, took his head and put it into his hands. He stood and took the folder back. He tried to start all over again, he crawled to the floor clasping desperately the pages that had been scattered around his living room. It seemed that the papers burned him. He was wiping tears, his head hurt, his chest felt tight, and he couldn't breathe. He clutched the sheets with both hands, trembling. Put them into the folder. He felt useless. He couldn't focus. He sat down, trying to calm down. He couldn't either.

The phone started ringing, again. Hutch couldn't react, so he didn't answer.

He stood up and snatched it from the wall feeling helpless and with no place to go.

He sat again and closed his eyes. He felt nauseated.

"Nooo!" he shouted.

"Calm down, Hutch. There must be a misunderstanding. Be calm and look."

He started breathing again, until suddenly, among the forms that he was putting together and crazily rereading, he found the scribbles of his friend.

There it was, his handwriting

Unforgettable.

He was afraid to read, but then he did.

"_I got tired of waiting, and I went._

_Starsky."_

The words that Parry had led Starsky to write for Caroline the day they went walking along the beach when he was waiting for her. The note he had stolen maliciously, just to add to all these dreadful and appalling documents thus, and to giving Hutch the finishing touch to his evil and painful plot.

The ominous note with the sinister message on it. "I got tired and left."

"_Don't be late, don't be late or he'd be gone." _He thought in the hidden message.

So he continued looking fiercely through the sheets of papers and forms. Now in cop mode. Searching for a clue or something until he found it.

In lurid penmanship, the same it had been used to write 'Hutch' in the front of the envelope, there was a note.

'Do not be late, Hutchinson. As he said, he's getting tired of waiting for you. 8 pm. The Lido, in Yucca. No car. Alone.'

"Yucca?" and then Hutch realized.

"No! Parry! Nooo!"

**ACT 28 \- AWAKENINGS -**

"I can't believe this; I really can't believe this."

Dobey hung up the phone vehemently; he was alone in his office, staring at the door in front of him, waiting for it to be opened, but nothing. "I'll keep you posted, I'll keep you posted" He mockingly mimicked Hutch. "You liar!"

Dobey was feeling flustered with the blond man! Just hours ago he seemed to be okay and now he had disappeared, again. He was so angry he started talking to himself.

"It's a quarter to eight. For Crying Out Loud!"

He took the phone again, redialed Venice's number, puffing, and blowing.

"Answer the phone! It's been 7 hours. Dammit!"

Nothing.

He picked the other extension. "Mildred? Patch me through Hutchinson, will ya? Try again."

"I already did Captain Dobey, but he doesn't answer…"

"Gah… thanks, Mildred!"

He hung up. Back to the other extension, he dialed Venice again.

Nothing.

"Where the hell are you? I can't believe this, I can't believe this, Hutch!" He kept talking to himself. Dobey stood up and started pacing along his Office, feeling troublesome. He could not swallow what Hutch was doing though he knew the blonde-haired man had the right to do many things. For an instant, earlier he had believed that his detective was on the mending road and back to Starsky, who was now determined to tell him all the truth. Sam had called one hour ago. He informed the Captain that he had already called Hutch too to telling him that Starsky was waiting for him at the beach house the next day, but the blond-haired man didn't answer.

"This is real life, not a soap opera full of misunderstandings, come on!" he yelled annoyed by the circumstances.

The phone rang, and he rushed to his desk to answer it.

"Hutch?" He said frantically.

"Sheesh, Harold! Calm down! What's going on darling?" Edith's voice was tranquilizing, soothingly calming.

"Oh, that you honey" He scratched his forehead, snorting. "I'm sorry… it's Hutch, nothing new I guess."

"What about Hutch? I've met him when I came down to the Station earlier today, didn't tell you? And he seemed to be… well, you know. Rosie told him that we were all rooting for him to come back, for him to be the Hutch we all love. Oh! I really thought that he took in," she sighed, "so what happened then?" She asked curiously.

Dobey's wife knew that her husband wasn't acting righteously with his detective, she even had talked to Starsky about that many times, but the brunet was very stubborn.

She couldn't convince him to give up his silly ploy.

"Yeah, I felt just like you, I believed that he had started to get over it but then…," Dobey shook his head, "he left today at noon and never came back! He had 'apparently' changed but, well... I'm starting to think that he is just a basket-case, Edith and worst when he finds out…," he sighed worried and wordless. "God forbid!"

"Hey, he is no basket-case! I would like to know how you would have felt if suddenly, out of nowhere, your whole world falls apart, and all your certainties are shattered. That is what's happening to Hutch. So rather you condemn, you should try to help him. You're very unfair to him, Harold Dobey. I don't recognize you," she admonished and then stopped, expecting her words to sink in. She knew the timing, and she had discussed this with her husband, many times. She insisted. "Telling him the truth would be an excellent starting point, dear, you know that and you also know that all of you are doing the wrong thing, you should tell him the truth… It's not fair" She finished, sternly.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know Edith. But that's in the past. I knew we did wrong but, hell! I was hoping he could cope with the grief the way Dave wanted to, needed to, just that. I was just hoping Hutch could get involved with the case again, to make him feel like duty-bounded, again; to get him back to himself... I Dunno. But now he disappeared." He shook his head worried and filled his lungs with air."I've already talked to Sam. Tomorrow Starsky's gonna tell him everything. We need to put an end to this absurdity before it's too late. At this rate, I'm going to lose not just one good Officer but two."

He decided he would quiet down and wait for Hutch to show up.

What with one thing and another it was half-past eight, so he thought, he could call it a day. Give him time. Give Hutch time.

They had come up with the lie so far. They could not stand it anymore.

It was not a matter of betrayal, but he was certain enough to make Starsky understand that now, what was at stake was Hutch's health.

And that could wait until tomorrow too.

Tomorrow morning, when Hutch arrives at Metro, he was going to talk to him and tell him. And if Starsky still wasn't prepared to face his partner; he was going to do it on Starsky's behalf. He was going to tell him the truth, all the truth, either way.

********************S&H********************

"Huggy?" Caroline's voice sounded frantic.

"Caroline, it's you? What's happening? Something's wrong?"

"I hope not. I mean Dave…, is Starsky with you?" she asked.

"No, he isn't! Why should he be? Why are you asking?" Huggy sounded curious and surprised; he had not talked with his friend since the day before.

"Oh my God!" Now she was hysterical. "He isn't at home, Huggy. He wasn't when I arrived at 6. I waited for him until 6.30 since that was the time I supposedly had to pick him up, and when he didn't come, I - I went crazy. I've already gone to the Grocery; to the Pier, and also went to the beach. I've been searching for him for more than two hours by now, but nothing, so far. He isn't showing up!" She sighed, worried.

Huggy stayed silent. He didn't know what to say, he was sure that nothing could have happened to his friend, but then, what if? Besides, he realized that the woman was starting to become more and more hopeless.

The nervous girl kept saying, trying to make some sense of all things. "It's half past eight now, Huggy! That's at least three hours that he's been gone, maybe more. Oh! I'm worried. I'm scared. He was supposed to be here, we had planned to go to the movies, and I… I was supposed to pick him up at 6.30 PM, and he was not here. Oh My God!" She really was scared; she had a strange feeling that something bad had happened to Starsky.

"Calm down, calm down. Did you call Sam? Dobey? This man… what was his name, the cab driver?"

"Ian. Yeah, I went to Ian's, but he is not at home. I've already called Sam at Memorial and no; I didn't call Captain Dobey, but… This is not like Dave. I mean what am I gonna do if something has happened to him? What if he fainted while he was on the beach or elsewhere? All his medicines are here, Huggy. What if he needs them? Uh? I shouldn't have been working. I should have stayed at home with him, why I have not? This is my entire fault, oh! I feel responsible. I'm terrified, Huggy."

"Oh! Come on! It's okay, don't be so dramatic and try to relax. I'm going to call Dobey, okay? He'll know what to do. He… well, we will call the Hospitals if it's necessary. I don't know; we'll do everything. Meanwhile, you can call Sam to go there and stay with you and be calm, okay? Everything's gonna be all right and any news, you let me know."

She hung up the receiver on the verge of crying, she was desperate and wasn't so sure that everything would be all right, neither Huggy did.

"Captain, this is Huggy. Starsky's missing."

********************S&H********************

The cab parked in front of The Lido Apartments.

The semi-circular 4-story building had been built in its Spanish Style during the twenties, and after Walter Kilian's murder in 1979, which was still unsolved, its reputation had been severely damaged. The place was just the refuge of acid freaks, dopes and suicidal now, and had been the stage of several ODs recently.

Hutch gave the money to the cab driver and got off the car.

He stayed for some time at the curb, wondering if what he was doing was right or what should he do; but It was half-past eight, and he was already late.

He peeked into the Lobby, through the oval window in the main door entrance, at Yucca St.

He was terrified.

The whole set was like a nightmare.

He didn't know what he was doing there, if he was going to meet his partner or in which state he would be in if so. He didn't know either if this was an ambush schemed by Parry just to catch him. And he rather wanted it to be that way than confirm that what he had found out about Starsky's health in those papers was true.

Therefore, he could tell that, at the time, he had only two certainties. The terror he felt and Starsky's note. However, he had to be strong and find out what was going on; he knew he couldn't be late.

He filled his lungs.

The air seemed putrid, but he needed to breathe anyway; he put his hand on the knob and the door opened, slowly

He got into the building.

There was nobody in the Lobby; there were no tenants, no landlord, no one to be seen.

He felt alone, he thought but was he?

Hutch started calling for someone, persistently.

The dreadful silence was uncomfortable.

He was alone, indeed. It seemed for an endless time, until the moment he heard footsteps breaking the silence and suddenly a short hunchback man who looked like a bulging-eyed gargoyle appeared behind him.

"Mr. Hutchinson, you are late," the horrid man said sarcastically.

Hutch turned out to the greasy voice. Those three words chilled his bones remembering the note. He couldn't utter a sound. He had been warned, and he knew that he couldn't be late. The crippled man kept saying, "I've been asked to be your host here and give you our welcome; so take your seat and wait. In a minute, Mr. Fletcher will show up."

The cripple left the Lobby, through the main entrance and locked the door behind.

Hutch realized that he was enclosed.

"_Mr. Fletcher? Who the hell is he?"_ Hutch thought.

The blond detective stood still next to the couch for so long that at some time, he no longer could bear it and he decided to sit down. The dusty cushion expelled a cloud of grime at mere contact. Hutch felt as if he had suddenly lost the ability to sweat; he was dry and cracked. His mouth, his hands, his eyes were dry.

Inside and outside.

He started looking around the big room. The hall was desolated, but he could tell that its old splendor somehow remained there. The place was silent; it had a deadly quality. The only sounds were his respirations. It was dark inside but through the windows carved into the weirdly thick walls, the street lamps' light filtered and formed ghostly shadows with the rich dark mahogany ceiling from ornate chandeliers that were hanging.

Everything around spoke volumes about its former opulence.

Hutch looked over to the fireplace, to the ornate elevator's doors, to the narrowness of the hallways and to the stairs, which led to the catwalk on the second floor.

He was trying to find if something was hiding somewhere… his detective's instinct told him that there was something indeed hiding somewhere.

Something or someone, and he never failed.

Suddenly he heard the squeak of the hardwood floor underfoot, and he turned his head to the sound of the most hideous laughter he had ever heard.

"Good Evening, Detective Hutchinson. It's so good to see you."

Mad Parry had shown up in all his glory. Hutch recognized him from the Library.

"Mad Parry. The Mad Parry." He said, mimicking that other time when he had met the other monster.

"Madoc Parry to be correct. Yes! Welcome, Detective." As if the killer had also been there that other time, Parry's words embedded in Hutch's soul.

"You've got my partner? Where's he, how is he?" the cop hurriedly asked.

"He's dying."

When Hutch heard that, he tried to pounce like a mad beast over him, but Madoc had already drawn his automatic, and he was pointing it at him at close range. The wrathful and bereaved police officer stayed stunned and flustered. Still. Parry made a sickening move with his head, like menacing. "Don't move!" He said, still pointing at him. "You wanna see him before he dies? You better behave yourself, Hutchinson."

They stayed that way for a long time; the obnoxious man never lowered the gun. "You better, stay calm; you're here for the long haul, pig. I'm as enraged as you are about this." The Welsh said evilly and fiercely, but then he changed his expression and put a compassionate grim, as if he was hurting, deeply. "His cancer has spread so much over his heavenly body that he's dying faster than I could imagine."

Hutch thought he could die or get drowned in fear and hate, but then Parry added, "Oh! I'm so sorry. You didn't know, did you? Now I'm telling you. You better understand it and accept it, detective. We're already too late, and it's no use crying over spilled milk." he added. Parry's face was deadpan, and then, he suddenly put a wicked grin. He smiled like a demon.

Hutch couldn't yet utter a sound. The monster continued. "You accept my rules, or I kill him now, and I won't wait until Sunday. Oh! And… by the way, detective. Happy birthday on Sunday, Hutchinson," He smiled and then he got somber, his expression changed again.

"_Oh My God, what am I gonna do?"_ Hutch thought while Mad started walking to the rear door, behind the staircase.

Parry gave his back to Hutch. His catlike steps were the ones of a feline in heat. However, it lasted just a few seconds since he turned back to him again, so suddenly, the blonde-haired man couldn't have the time to try any move.

Parry stopped, turned around and said.

"You stay quiet. What were you thinking of doing? I'm in charge here; you got it? And for that, you should be even grateful. I'm giving you the chance to enjoy with me his last two days on Earth. Take it or leave it, Hutchinson. But if you take it, you take it my way."

The man had an ominous cadence in his speaking. The way he said the words… The way his words were slurred. He sounded intimidating and terrifying as if his words were slowly falling from his mouth. What he was saying and how his smile looked, was so wicked that Hutch got scared, but yet the horrified man couldn't make a sound.

"Be careful. I'm very good at this. I have the power here, Hutchinson; over you, over him and even over his cancer." Parry grimaced in disgust and shut his eyes. "I'm going to kill David before that fucking plague ends with him. So if you wanna play along, you come to me, but under my dominion, by my codes, and with my rules. You don't make questions; you don't try stupid moves. You shut up, and everything will be all right. Everything will be just fine if you just obey and watch."

Hutch was visibly disturbed, and he couldn't catch his breath. He was very agitated.

"Calm down, detective and save your energy for later, you'll need it. So what do you say? You follow my indications? Because he's waiting for you."

The sinister monolog ended, and Hutch couldn't find his breaths.

With his head, Parry invited Hutch to go down the stairs through the door that led to the basement. The blonde-haired man would follow his orders.

He had no choice.

He didn't know what else to do. Hutch walked to the mirrored wall that was in front of him, beside the door. He felt stripped of everything; of hope, especially.

"Put your hands up on that wall," Parry commanded, patted him with the gun "Open your legs and stay still."

The blond could see his reflection in the mirror in front of him.

He didn't recognize himself.

Parry pushed Hutch until his face and chest were pressed up against the glass. He could see his steamy breath disfigure everything around when Madoc's shadow started frisking him. He took his gun, his holster. Hutch felt Parry's vicious touch all over him, so disgusting.

"You're not an inadequate specimen, Hutchinson, though frankly, you pale in comparison to David, nothing compares to your partner, of course. However, I must admit that even though you're nothing attractive to me, more than one might think otherwise."

Hutch remembered Sam, every single word he had told him about this wicked man. He knew everything about him. He felt he was knocked down. Parry cuffed Hutch's hands behind his back, and the cop realized that the handcuffs were Starsky's. He recognized their noise, the interrupted shriek of the seal so characteristic and distinctive.

The realization killed him.

Starsky was there, in fact.

After some time of recognition, as if Parry would have realized what Hutch was feeling and let the truth sinks into the cop's head, he crushed his gun deep down into his neck.

Parry stood behind the police officer and started guiding him toward the basement's door.

He did it slowly.

********************S&H********************

Every step Hutch took, he felt he was getting closer and closer to Starsky, and it scared him. He knew that he was being reunited with him, his friend, and at the same time, he was aware that he was facing his worst nightmare.

"_What could I say? How to react? In which state, he would be in? Was it true what I had just read? What did he say about Starsky's health?"_

So many questions.

Hutch started walking down the stairway, cautiously.

The cellar was dark, dimly lit by slits in the wall that faced the sidewalk.

The place gave him the creeps.

If the walls above ground were unnecessarily thick, the basement had been undoubtedly built to be an anti-air shelter. It was solid. It looked like Brownstone at first, but then as while he got down, he realized it was only red paint, like in the Amityville House. The Basement was painted crimson red, bloody red.

Hutch felt weirdly airless and claustrophobic, he couldn't breathe.

The whole place smelled of musty, neglect and urine, and he had an odd feeling though he kept walking. Every step he took down the stairs and into the room brought to him the sound of one breathing pattern, which was entirely abnormal. Sometimes accelerated, it fatally emptied in a labored and loud gasping. The sickening and high sound made everything shushed all around even the bat of the bats that were lurking outside the little windows. Every step he took, the sound was increasingly pervasive and persistent. It made him want to run away, but then, it compelled him to go after it. The ominous noise seemed to vanish, all of a sudden, unexpectedly, and couldn't be heard for some time as if the sound might have disappeared. And that scared the hell out of him, because though it was obnoxious when his ears came back empty Hutch felt that he would collapse, frightened. There were no ordinary sounds when it all became silent; there wasn't any breathing, no more. No more life.

Until the moment, the wheeze resurfaced, and Hutch felt that he could breathe again, finally.

It was scary, as scary as the useless puffs and the futile gasps that preceded the agonal death rattle, which started yet again, in another cycle, one more time.

For relieving him, though suffocated.

It sounded like the scrape of a dying man.

He realized.

"Starsky."

Hutch felt, like dying, when he discovered his friend and his silhouette barely outlined in the dark room. The blond stayed, grief-stricken and visibly disturbed. When the cop reached the landing, he stumbled upon something. He heard a metallic noise and by the light, which entered through the small windows, he realized that there were hospital folding screens stacked on the floor. Hundreds of them. They were ready to be unfolded to close off parts of the room like in small chambers.

"Shut up, Hutchinson and stop there" Came Parry's voice from behind.

That instant, Hutch felt Parry's hand all over his mouth. Mutely, smothering him. It was sinister. "Sit down there and shut up," he said, and Hutch obeyed. Parry lit a reflector that almost blinded the desperate and surprised man, and tied him, harshly, to a chair. "You stay silent and watch," he warned the blonde man. Madoc squatted in front of Hutch, obstructing his vision "You are going to have a good time here, Hutchinson" he said, and Hutch spit him out. Angry.

Parry punched him in the jaw and knocked the lights out of him.

The Welsh laughed a sick laugh before climbing the stairs, and while the blond's head fell from his torso, he left.

********************S&H********************

When Hutch recovered his consciousness, he didn't know how long he had been there.

Through the wall slits, he could see the dawn, but it seemed to be cloudy.

The petrichor scent, which emanated from the soil outside, reminded him of the end of the dry spell and confirmed him that it had rained. He realized indeed that it was still raining at times since, by the broken glass of the cracks, the water entered and sometimes hit hard and soaked Starsky.

Starsky, who was all wet.

Now he could see him.

His partner was lying on his back, supine with his arms and legs outstretched, with his face upward over a rusty iron sheet, below Hutch. He was at twelve feet away, so close and yet so far. Starsky was dressed. He was deadly quiet. He wasn't tied; Hutch guessed that there was no need to tie him since he looked so out of it.

He didn't know whether he was dreaming or if he wasn't.

Somehow, in the middle of the night, while he was unconscious, Parry had disappeared and had lit the big light aimed directly at Starsky's unmoving body.

Until that moment, Hutch hadn't been able to see his friend either.

But now that he could, the scene was frightening.

The obnoxious reflector was illuminating his buddy as if he was some art's installation; a three-dimensional optical experience, he had to look at. Hutch wanted to throw up. From Hutch's privileged point of view, he could see Starsky's chest. It was rising and falling. That was the only movement he had been able to see during the last 7 hours. The brunet had never woke up since the hit on his jaw the day before in Parry's car. The nosebleed proved to be significant and in Starsky's condition dangerous, but Hutch didn't know.

He just knew that his friend didn't move.

Hutch stayed there; tied to that chair with his hands cuffed behind his back and his feet stranded to its wooden legs. Starsky was in front of him, over the corroded and cold surface that looked like a table. The chair, in which Hutch sat, was a part of a sort of stage or platform three steps of height. The way that the table on which Starsky was lying down and the platform where the blond sat looked like a Surgical Auditorium. It reminded him the one he used to go while he attended Med School at St. Louis back then when he was young.

The view was unsurpassable.

Hutch felt trapped as if he was in captivity. He was.

Like Parry had predicted and said.

Hutch was there to shut up, obey and watch.

Slightly elevated and scanning everything.

He had never been allowed to touch his partner.

Hutch had only heard his partner breathe.

Motionless.

Watched him, and listened to him.

That was exactly what Parry wanted him to do.

He felt that his heart was being ripped in two. There was no easy way for the blond to staying calm, there was no easy way to don't try to do something, yet he knew he couldn't do anything. He had never felt so alone before, regardless of Starsky's proximity. He experienced the abandonment of a newborn kid deprived of his mother.

Without Starsky, that was how he felt.

Alone.

Starsky's respirations were still being intermittent, sporadic. Its rhythm accelerated angrily sometimes, and then suddenly seemed to stop, and it felt like he was starting to get drowned. Then his lungs inflated one more time, and everything started again.

Blood's rivers run from his nose to his neck.

Hutch didn't know what to do, not without Starsky to share the decision with. He was going crazy, and he couldn't think. "_I don't know what to do. I'm pushing the odds, I don't know what to do... That other time, not again"_, he thought.

Suddenly he heard a creak and the basement door started to open. Someone was going down the stairs.

"Are you enjoying the view?"

Unexpectedly, Madoc had reappeared.

He was behind Starsky, hidden in the shadow of the reflector. He hunched beside him, his figure was suddenly illuminated, and before Hutch could think of an answer, he shushed him with his hand. Parry gave Hutch a nurse's gesturing and the silent treatment. The cruel man got closer to Starsky's ear; his dirty mouth was at one inch from him.

"Good Morning, David, how are you doing?"

Nothing.

"Oh, David, you are lazy! You lover-boy, don't tell me that you haven't slept enough, uh? Or maybe you bled too much?"

Nothing.

Parry snorted. "The hell you did!" he took Starsky's face with his hands. Clutched to him. "Hey! You are all wet! To see if you get pneumonia!" He laughed an evil, demonic laugh. Parry began to dry Starsky's torso and his wet shirt with a dirty cloth that he took from the floor while he laughed even more loudly at his irony. "David? Come on, Rise and shine! Too much for a simple nosebleed! So poor are your red blood cells count?" he insisted.

Still nothing.

Another snort. "Okay, I guess it's time to play the doctor." He said lightly and shook his head, still looking at Starsky. "I was hoping that I can wake you up easier, sweetheart, but damn cancer!" He took a time watching him, pensively and out of the blue, he slapped him violently in his face, and Starsky's head rolled from side to side.

"NO! You bastard" Hutch screamed. "Why?"

"Shut up, Hutchinson! Or I'm starting hurting him from now on." The Welsh pointed his finger to Hutch, raising his angry eyes off from Starsky. "My codes, my rules! Remember?" he reminded Hutch. He directed his glassy, lifeless eyes, straight through the partner and then re-assumed his position over the still body of the unconscious man who was lying very vulnerable, trying to assess his condition.

On an adjacent table, sort of a kitchen cart, there were remedies, syringes, IV's bottles, scalpels, and other items and medical paraphernalia that Parry had prepared before.

Hutch remembered that Sam had told him that Parry had attended to Med School, too, so that fact made him feel even more scared.

The killer went behind one of those hospital folding screens that were all over the place, and he brought the heart monitor and the ominous defibrillator, which he used to kill and shock his victims with. He had all these elements neatly arranged in the table at Starsky's side and began to examine the clinical responses of the unfortunate and helpless man. He took the stethoscope and heard Starsky's heartbeat. Madoc shook his head and sighed; he took his blood pressure, and he examined both eyelids, he opened them and then, he shone a light into the blue orbits.

"Well, his heart rate's alarming," He said aloud to his one-man audience "his blood pressure is too low, and his pupil's response is sluggish, to say the least." He raised his eyes to Hutch, who was breathlessly listening. "I think that, since we still have more than one and a half day ahead, I should intervene immediately if I want to enjoy the last show, you dig?"

He smiled perversely.

He decided that he should hook Starsky to the heart monitor, first. He took a syringe then and shot him with an amber liquid in his left arm. Parry started an IV solution on the right and put the oxygen mask over the brunet's mouth and nose, "Just to ease his breathing…" he explained. He smiled cynically and raised his eyes at Hutch, again, who, at that point, was ashen white, holding back his tears that mingled with his respirations, and desperately scared. "My best guess is that he should regain consciousness during the next hour. Don't worry but it's plain that it was a mistake to have had him one entire day almost, without his medication and bleeding. Look at his heart rate, it seems like he couldn't breathe!" He looked at his wristwatch. "Well, since yesterday at 5 PM I mean, it was the last dose he received so I'm pumping him full of drugs right now, you know?." Parry grabbed his own chin, scolding himself for his carelessness. "Phew! And I'm sure his platelets counts and blood cell counts are on the ground too. You know he's having chemo? Yeah, it usually happens when you have cancer but, unfortunately, I can't fix that. I'll just give him something to stop the bleeding from the nose. Anyway, I don't have to worry so much for only just one day that's left, till Sunday I mean". He made the unnecessary clarification, "However, I have to be more careful, that's a given; he's sicker than I could think of, and I almost lost him. It was close, Hutchinson. Close, but no cigar!" he smiled stupidly and sighed.

Hutch would have said many words.

The English Language didn't harbor enough epithets to add anything to his sentiments at the time, so he decided to refrain himself and shut up. He couldn't indulge the possibility to worsen things with his partner.

Parry's actions appeared to be efficient and expeditious.

He was on the move during almost 15 minutes until he hunched over the limp body again, and softly stroked the brunet's curls. He caressed his cheek and lovingly said to Starsky, "You get better, handsome, and then we're gonna enjoy our big time."

"_I hate him; I hate his words! I feel helpless, I think I'm gonna burst and blow up!"_ Hutch thought, and he stuck his eyes with Parry's.

Mad could feel Hutch's rage; it oozed off his pores, too.

That's why they stayed at great length, staring in their eyes, defiantly and secretly expecting and waiting for Starsky to respond.

The air was thick and cumbersome; Hutch couldn't help but ask. "I just don't get it; I mean why are you doing this? Why are you helping him to get better if you are gonna kill him?"

Parry looked at Hutch. He riled and started scolding him. He shook his head. "Oh, Hutchinson, Hutchinson, Hutchinson, you don't ever learn, do you? I mean, how many times? How many times you insist on hurting your friend. Uh?" He shook his head again, sadly and surprised, "You have broken your commitment with me here, and you have disobeyed my orders. You weren't allowed to talk or to ask questions just yet, remember? And you did! Although I've told you that you should be silent. Oh boy! You'll be punished, Hutchinson." Parry warned the blonde-haired man and continued, "And I'll see to it when David wakes up, you know. Poor man, he'll be the one who's going to be punished on your behalf, since your penalty Hutchinson, is his conviction".

He smiled evilly.

Hutch stayed stunned, silent and inert.

"In the meantime, and despite the fact that I'm not supposed to answer, I'm telling you what is the reason I want him to heal temporarily. You wanna know?" He made a pause and Hutch didn't dare to say anything. Parry laughed. "I want him to suffer, Hutchinson. I want him to be well aware of his sufferance because he deserves it; that's why". Parry touched Starsky's face while speaking and stared enraptured with him, his words seemed endless. "He took everything from me. This man, Hutchinson, is responsible. Dobey loves him more than he loves me, and Sam, and you. Everyone loves him, even I do. He's exquisite. Now you understand? You'll see how much I'm gonna hurt him." He smiled maliciously.

Hutch looked down at the floor.

He was frightened and disconsolate.

Half an hour later, Parry had finished his contemplation.

He started whispering something into Starsky's ear, even nibbling at it while, with his left hand, he searched for the carotid pulse on his neck. Satisfied, he took away the oxygen mask off the brunet's face and the electrodes from the heart monitor; he only maintained the IV solution.

"Come on, you breathe, breathe."

At the lack of response, Parry threw the brunet's head violently back; he pinched his nose and began inflating his lungs, in a CPR fashion wholly unnecessary.

He raised his eyes to Hutch.

"You won't be able to rescue him this time as you have always done, Hutchinson. You won't be able to stop me!" He said, and returned to his previous task, drew one more respiration, a cardiac massage and stopped. "It'll be easier anyway. I promise you will be able to say goodbye."

"You son of a bitch!" Hutch mumbled furiously.

"You shouldn't tempt me, Hutchinson!", and Parry became violent all of a sudden, he started hitting Starsky without mercy in his chest. "Fuck you, David! You come around. Now! You look so damn beautiful like this! I need you to wake up, please… wake up! I can't wait for so long."

He loosened the grip he had had over the brunet's head, and he threw him back, smashing it, bumping it into the iron sheet, shouting. He walked away from Starsky's still body to gain some perspective while he kept on staring at him with hunger and lust and started touching him again, this time all over his helpless body.

Parry was getting nervous.

He unbuttoned the brunet's wet shirt and stroked his chest, and then he started lasciviously from his neck to his toes, running his hands down through his belly and legs viciously. He besieged the brunet's body. The cop was entirely unprotected and helpless. The harassment turned out to be unbearable for Hutch.

Parry didn't do anything else but touching him.

"I'm sorry I've waited this long to savor every inch of you. I won't waste any more valuable time or energy to doing so. So wake up! You devil, wake up!" He cried and shouted over his head without compassion.

And Starsky awoke.

**ACT 29 – TOGETHER AGAIN -**

"Hello, David. Good Morning."

Starsky moaned something unintelligible and raised his head from the board as high as his weakness allowed him. When he recognized his captor, he said, wearily "Ian… Where did you bring me in? What do you want from me?"

"If I say that I want it all, you are going to think that it is too much? Because I certainly want everything. How about that?" he laughed, perversely.

Starsky stayed silent and became confused.

"Yeah…" he said discouragingly, and again with his head lying on the cold surface on which he was "What I needed, a wacko like you in my life. What…"

The Welsh put his dirty hand over the brunet's mouth and interrupted him. "Whatever you can give me, man is gonna be okay. Because whatever you can't, I'll pluck it from you!" He made a filthy pause, took his hand out of the fleshy lips and stared enraptured to his prisoner, "Damn! You are stunning," he said and nodded.

"Oh! Oh no", the sick man shook his head and said disgusted, "please, don't give me that crap again," he finished.

Starsky swallowed the lump that fiercely strangled his throat; he tried to inflate his lungs and sought comprehension in Ian's face, he waited for a minute to gather his strength. He sighed, deflated. "You know I'm finished. You already know that I'm sick, please… that I'm dying. Lemme go, please. Leave me alone. " The brunet tried to convince the murderer, to make him react, but in the midst of his effort, suddenly, drew one last breath, involuntarily. He choked, and he ran out of air before starting to get dizzy. He frightened. He felt how his conscience began to ebb away again, and he shut his eyes. Parry noticed and touched his shoulder and shook up. Then he breathed into his face trying to wake him.

Starsky startled.

"Don't touch me!" the brunet man said.

"Oh, come on, David. We're pretty acquaintances at this point, you and me. I'm sure we're gonna have a good time." The Welsh put his hand over the sick man's chest, "This time it'll be you and me, just you and me, you know? I'm longing for you, David. Look around, isn't it cozy?"

Starsky closed his eyes, tried to calm down, he knew he was unable to prevent anything to happen to him. "Where the hell are we?" He said, miserably. He felt broken and started to get visibly agitated

"Shh, relax, gorgeous! Don't get worried. It's okay; it's okay!" Parry tried to soothe him.

Starsky relaxed a little, dropped his head, and rested it heavily over the iron sheet again. He snorted, searching to inflate his lungs but nothing. It was no use. He just couldn't his hurt lungs seemed out of order. Parry realized, and he gave his prisoner the time to try to concentrate on his breathing, slowly.

To breathe, something that should be so natural, appeared to be an impossible enterprise for Starsky lately. Yet his inner strength prevented him from drowning in his oxygen-deprived existence; so he relaxed, serenely and he drew one last controlled breath seeking air and he found it.

The Welsh felt proud of the cop's efforts to stay awake. "That's it, gorgeous. Breathe with me."

The brunet opened his eyes, astonished and incredulous; he thought he would try again to persuade his assailant to let him go and said trying to sound firm, "Ian, this is stupid. Everybody will be searching for me at this time. Caroline, she… If you don't let me go, they will come here and get to you."

"Who they are?"

"My Captain, my friends, and the whole Police Force." he closed his eyes in the effort.

"Oh, How scary, isn't it?" he laughed viciously "But you didn't mention your partner. How's that? Hutchinson wouldn't come here to your rescue?" Parry asked him, provocatively. Starsky opened his eyes astonished but didn't utter a sound and Parry continued. "Seems to me, or the most famous duo has been dismembered? What a pity! Such decorated cops you were." he ended ironically.

"Shut up!" Starsky yelled to his fullest potential and tried to get up.

Parry pushed him back violently into the position he was in.

"Be cool! Otherwise, you'll be in deep kimchi, dear. I'm sure as hell nobody will come here to get to me as you have imagined. Neither to try to save you, as you wish. Unless you want me to go and bring the blond blintz for you to do so." He said mockingly.

Starsky opened his eyes again, surprised at Parry's familiarity. "Don't mention my partner's name. He's got nothing to do with this.", he said menacingly.

"Oh, really? And what if I say that he's already here?."

"Shut up! You son of a bitch!" the brunet said desperately.

"Hutchinson!" The man yelled at Hutch, instantly.

"What?" Starsky frowned and asked, desperately.

"You've been already found, my dear," Parry said, intriguing. There was an endless silence inhabited only by the brunet's sonorous gasping until Parry's imposed voice spoke deeply again. "Yes, cop."

"Whaddaya mean?" Starsky cried, confusedly.

"Hutchinson!" He shouted again. And the time stood still. "You're allowed to say hello to your partner. The blonde blintz is here, David and watching you," he said mockingly and shook his head.

Starsky started to get frenzied and started gasping even more impaired, while Hutch kept silent, ignoring whether he could talk or couldn't, whether he should or shouldn't or if it were a trap.

"Hutchinson!" the monster repeated. Parry yelled, frantically. And this time pulled his Colt and pointed it straight at Starsky's temple. He cocked the gun; he raised his eyes to the blonde-haired man who was still inert in the dark. "If you stay quiet, I kill him."

"Noooo! Don't hurt him!" Hutch shouted desperately, his loud respirations could be heard everywhere. He was terrified. He didn't understand what he should do, whether talk or don't.

"Hutch?" Starsky's feeble and trembling voice came behind; he sounded desperate and frightened.

"Talk! You bastard!" Parry shouted again "Talk now, or I kill him!" the roar of the Welsh's voice was deafening.

"He - here, here, I'm here, buddy, here Starsk," Hutch stammered desperately.

There was an eerie silence again.

The same pattern mirrored.

Starsky's uncontrollable respirations after Hutch's shout and his faint question were the beat of their desolation. The brunet was so shocked that he almost passed out and lost control of himself; he started murmuring. "What did you do to him? What's going on? Hutch?" He tried to stand up, but Parry caught a glimpse of him and quickly punch him again in the ribs. The aggressor did it mildly enough, not to harm him but only to shove his prey back onto the metal surface, knocking him down.

"Don't try anything, David, it ain't no use," he slurred.

Parry took over; he was above Starsky's body, restraining him from both arms and talking to him angrily into his face. Hutch started desperately to try to get rid of his restraints and shouted to his partner; he wanted Parry to stop, but he couldn't move, he was desperate.

Parry ignored him; he continued talking into Starsky's ears. Lying to him, confusing him.

"Be quiet, don't get excited, you're going to hurt yourself or I will. See? Your partner's here, and he's doing nothing to helping you. He already knew that you're sick, that you're dying. I've told him before, you listen? And what did he do? Nothing! He didn't give a damn about you; it's obvious! You should not be so worried about him." Starsky was definitely out of breath at the time, and he started feeling numb, absent and despondent. Parry continued torturing him in his mind, mercilessly. The brunet shook his head. "That stupid telltale about New York! Come on! If he cares enough, he could at least have tried to find out what was wrong with you, that you were sick, that you were dying of cancer. Come on David, you forget about him, he doesn't deserve you." The Welsh started caressing his prisoner's face "It's me who you need, me, and I'm here, I'm here.''

Starsky's mind drifted to elsewhere; to another place. He was so weak that he stayed listlessly on the rusty sheet, crying his partner's name without paying real attention to the assailant's words. What Ian was saying was insane, Hutch couldn't be there. It was a recorded tape or something that the evil man had schemed just to torture him.

His head hurt, his heart hurt. He should better pass out than to keep vigil, but he insisted on calling his partner's name.

"_It has no sense; I'm delirious; he can't be here. Hutch can't be"_, the brunet thought.

"Hutch? Please, buddy, I need to see you, please?" he begged.

Starsky couldn't see his partner, the room was pitch black, completely dark. The only spot lit was the place in which he was laying down, at the mercy of the powerful reflector that blinded him.

"I'm here, buddy" Hutch's voice came clear in the dark.

That stopped the brunet. Froze him.

The reflector's light was so intense that there were only shadows around for the helpless man. But that voice, his voice was there.

"Here," Hutch repeated again though this time, he wasn't able to finish.

The metallic sound of a bullet resounded in the silence; the lead got embedded at the brunet's feet into the sheet where he was lying down and before Parry's cry. "You shut up now, Hutchinson! You are not allowed to talk just now. Enough!"

Starsky curled up on the iron table and continued moaning, saying weakly Hutch's name and started trembling. "Hutch, What… What are you doing? Is this true? What happened? Hutch, I can't see you. Hutch! Ian, please… What have you done to him?" Starsky begged his captor.

"Calm down, David" Parry started caressing him, "I didn't do anything to your arrogant partner" He stated annoyed.

Since Starsky was hunched in a fetal position after the blow he had received on the side ribs, Parry took him by his arms and started to place him in the same position he was in before.

"Come on, sweetheart," Parry said to the unfortunate man. He hardly managed to flip the brunet in one single movement, though with a little exertion, because the man, who was restless, was needed to be put flat on his back again.

"Come on, come on. I need to see you handsome; I need you on your back."

But Starsky, stubbornly, kept trying to fight him for a little while though he was no use.

A few minutes later, he had failed miserably since after the brief, feeble attempts; he stayed yet again at his tormentor's mercy. Parry's force was otherworldly, and soon he had roughly dragged the supine man like a carcass over the cool surface, although the brunet had offered some resistance at the beginning; neither he nor his strength were powerful enough to overcome him and Parry had found him very easy to handle, bringing him under immediately.

Therefore, the monstrous man was rejoicing again in his submissive, docile and passive victim, who laid helpless on the table breathing wildly. Starsky was shaking and mumbling his partner's name incoherently.

The way Starsky laid helplessly on the table made Parry feel very powerful, so he told him, "You never, but never fight me again, David. Never disobey me again, lover boy, you listen?"

It was not a question. It was a warning.

Starsky fixed his eyes in those of his worst nightmare. He would not accept a threat that simply, he also had something to say. He would not go down that easily; he wouldn't be bent, not while he had enough strength still… However, he didn't make it on time.

"You let my partner go! You take me!" Hutch shouted from the dark, replacing Starsky's voice, thinking in unison, as always.

"Hutch!" Starsky said this time more clearly, but Parry ignored them.

"I'm here, Starsk. I'm here, and I'll take care." Hutch said though he wasn't allowed to do it, fortunately, Parry didn't care this time, apparently. The Welsh only laughed. "David, listen, you be a good boy; we can play together and then, you'll be free, okay?"

"I won't. I won't make it. I won't be alive to ..."

Parry interrupted him, "And who says that I want you to live?"

Starsky looked at him in horror, the man winced and made a grim face.

"Now, relax, you ripped your vein!" he says finally.

Parry slowly started circling around the metallic board where Starsky was being pinned down. He took off the IV drip from his right arm and then brutally, almost dislocating it from his shoulder, twisted his right hand and his wrist to assure him to the table with the shackles. "You are too restless, honey."

Hutch's continued shouts were unnerving, so once the brunet had been secured, Parry went where the blond was and gave him a punch in his jaw, showing him who was in charge again.

"Now you tell me, who's the tough one here, huh?" he said to the barely conscious man, ironically.

He got back to the surface where Starsky was and repeated the process with his other three limbs methodically.

The fixation couldn't be undone by the person tied down to it, which appealed to him so much.

"What are you doing and why? Who are you?" Starsky asked scared.

"I'm Madoc Parry, and I'm gonna kill you."

Starsky got paralyzed.

********************S&H********************

"It's been 12 hours, Captain, I don't know where to search or what else to do," Huggy said exhaustedly.

He was pacing around Dobey's Office frantically. It was 8 in the morning, and since 8 PM the day before, they were searching for Starsky. "Damn! No shit, nothing. Not a single clue, a call, nothing!" He had pulled all the strings; he had contacted every single snitch on the street, but yet nothing had turned up.

All the Zebra units were searching for the brunet; the whole Police Force was searching for him though only Simmons and Babcock were well aware of Starsky's condition.

"I guess his girl is right, Huggy," Dobey said matter of factly, "This has nothing to do with the fact that he's a cop. It is something related to his health, dammit!" The Captain was dispirited and helpless.

Minnie and Collins were trying to find any possible primes in R&I.

They had found a few people that actually could be interested in seeking revenge against the brunet, so far. Though it was hardly probable, the possibility that Proudholm could be seeking for another revenge toward the police officer wasn't discarded. Positive leads involved Gunther and were stronger and more consistent though it was also unlikely that the powerful man, in jail, could be trying to devise another attack against the cop.

However, since Hutch's disappearance didn't go unnoticed, and it gave Dobey the creeps, nobody discarded that possibility either. Regardless it was increasingly striking that Starsky's disappearance could mean revenge against the duo, Dobey decided that he wasn't going to rule out any possibility. Hence, he called the prison and sent Todesco to interrogate the old monster. Though all the investigation was targeted to find where Starsky could be primarily, since his health condition was of much concern, nothing prevented them from being watchful about any other possible threat.

"Did we try in all the Hospitals in the County, Captain?" Huggy asked nervously.

"Yeah… yeah yeah… We already checked in Barlow, in the Community Hospitals of Huntington, Long Beach, Hollywood, Los Angeles, in U.C.L.A Medical Center." Dobey grimaced while he was talking to Huggy.

Simmons and Babcock entered the Captain's Office and were already there.

"Thanks, God, Hutch has failed to his word again. Otherwise, I just wouldn't have known how I might carry out the search with him around, by the way… we still have two more hours to go until he arrives at the Precinct. Anyway, if there's no news in, let me see…" He looked at his wristwatch, "five hours, 'till midday, I'm gonna put an APB on Starsky, whether I like it or not. I have no other choice." Dobey said in utter dismay.

He felt perturbed, at this point, Hutch was just a technicality… or more than that, soon to would be the next casualty.

"Yeah," Simmons said, "damn if you do it and damn if you don't. We'll just have to deal with Hutch later."

Dobey had no answers, and Huggy was worried.

The lanky black man said flustered, "I mean how can a sick man like him vanish into thin air, in the middle of any given summer afternoon?"

"Well, we can't rule out the possibility that he might have been kidnaped, but why? By whom? He was out of commission lately. I don't know…" Babcock added.

"Wait a minute, wait a minute." Huggy frowned, "What about that loony who worked at my Establishment? The one who stole Starsky's folder from Hope the day the shooting at the alley, remember Captain? The day Starsky was hospitalized in Receiving?" He froze at the realization…"What if this crazed who is seeking revenge against me hold any grudge against Starsky too? Oh, My God!", Huggy was desperate.

"That can't be, Huggy" Dobey didn't see the connection.

"Listen, Captain," he approached the Captain's desk, hunched over it, desperately. "That wacko threatened Anita that he would hurt her in the person she loved the most," Huggy tried to reason. "And having worked beside my waitress for three entire months he knows damn well what Starsky means to her. I wonder, why not?" he raised his eyebrows and straightened. "Russell Wayne Bromley, that's his name." The friend assured. He was convinced in his own theory.

"I really don't think so. That is derisory, I don't know, Huggy. I believe, I'm sure that this is something related to his medical condition, unfortunately, but I don't know. I am not going to discard any possibility anyway, but I'm concerned about his health," he sighed and shook his head. "Oh! My God! We've already called the whole EMT's in the city and nothing. Let me see, I have a checked list here. We called Glendale and Long Beach Memorial, the Los Angeles Metropolitan, the Good Samaritan… and nothing, nothing so far either. I don't know what else to do!" The Captain raised his eyes to the flamboyant man in front of him and shrugged at his worried stare. "Okay, okay. I'm going to send a team to this Bromley's place you've mentioned, just in case. Do you have any address so…"

"Captain," Minnie entered the office abruptly, interrupting unexpectedly and out of nowhere. She was visibly rueful; her Superior didn't dare to reprimand her, "You pick up your extension please, Captain. Someone's just called from St. John's."

They held their breaths.

The Captain took the receiver.

"This is Captain Dobey," he made a long pause and then they all could see how Dobey's face started to contort. "Okay," a grave nod, "I'll be there as soon as possible."

He hung up the receiver.

He had to be strong not to burst in pain and to gather the strength to face Huggy and his fellow Officers with the piece of news he'd just received from St. John's Hospital. But he wouldn't break.

"… a 5.11 ft tall, dark, curly-haired man with no identification and one big scar on his chest who appeared to be in his forties, collapsed on the beach in the Santa Monica Pier yesterday at 5 PM. The bystanders immediately called for help, and a helicopter landed on the nearby beach parking lot to take the victim to St. John's Hospital, but… it was reportedly too late. He was pronounced dead yesterday at 7 PM. Heart attack. Since nobody claimed the body yet, they are going to transport him to the Morgue in two hours to perform the autopsy."

At noon on Friday the 26 August, Dobey had to be faced with the dreaded moment he never wanted to have to face in his life again. Not after Elmo.

His worst nightmare.

********************S&H********************

Parry felt bewitched by the sight beneath him.

The man at his mercy was flawless.

"Fuck, David! You look so damned hot, all sprawled and tied down for me", he was licking in anticipation. "I'm going to give you a present."

Once Starsky was secured with the four shackles to the surface, the Welsh went to untie his partner. "Let's kick off, Hutchinson! Come and see him. It's ShowTime".

After more than eleven hours.

Hutch couldn't move.

He was unable to use his legs. But then he needed to be near Starsky. So although the needles in his limbs because of the lack of circulation, were excruciating, he got over it, and he put all the effort he could muster to achieve it.

And he stood.

Parry drew his gun toward him and ordered him to approach the metal table where his friend was lying, slowly. However, since the Welsh didn't take his cuffs off of his numb arms, the blond-haired man knew, in advance, that the desired contact with his buddy was not going to happen.

But yet, Hutch had to see him before it might be far too late.

"Open your eyes, David, I always keep my promises."

Starsky opened his eyes and the assailant drowned in the sight beneath him, "Aww, I know how you like him, but let me tell you, some taste you have, man!." He nudged the blond-haired man abruptly, and Hutch took a step forward.

After two months, they stared at each other for the first time; for a long time and words weren't needed.

Hutch felt destroyed. To find out that someone was dying of cancer was a shocking discovery for anyone, but for him and under the circumstances, it amplified.

The moment he saw Starsky over there, he started crying.

Pressure, uncertainty, helplessness, pain, and frustration were not enough adjectives to describe the way he felt.

They felt.

The first moment they crossed their glances they knew that they were going to need more time. They knew. They were going to need more time to come to terms with their feelings. More time to share each other. They couldn't fathom their future without themselves: Not in Hutch's life, neither in Starsky's afterlife. They couldn't be alone, they couldn't be apart.

They should be together.

The past months had been hell enough without themselves, so they needed themselves reciprocally; they needed more time to be. Their mutual company. Time, only time.

Even if it was to adjusting themselves to Starsky's diagnosis.

Even if it was to adjusting themselves to Hutch's diagnosis.

They were both sick, terminated.

Starsky's death would be Hutch's sadness, forever; Hutch's sadness would be Starsky's end. Forever.

Everything had been so cruelly unexpected.

They knew that they wanted to look after themselves, that they loved each other.

That together they were special; they were nothing being apart.

Starsky was mute and scared; he didn't know what to say to Hutch.

Hutch was speechless too; he didn't know what to tell to Starsky either.

Although Starsky had lost weight and looked fatigued, in his weakness, he was still the strong one. He kept giving Hutch strength and endurance.

The brunet to the blond, no matter what, was very needed. Hutch felt so heartbroken that his thoughts lacked any logic; he couldn't articulate a sound… and so Starsky did.

"You lost your cookie duster?" They smiled thrilled "that way's much better." Starsky sighed deeply and closed his watering eyes, recovering his strength and composure. He needed to say it, and he needed to say it now, "I'm Sorry, Hutch. I was trying to… protect you," he said poignantly.

Hutch nodded and couldn't answer anything. It was way too painful for him, so the Brunet continued saying, "I thought that it would be better for you if you hated me. I didn't wanna drag you into another nightmare, not after Gunther." Starsky closed his eyes and breathed, "But I realized that I was dying faster without you by my side and that I was also killing you without me by yours!" He laughed and grimaced in pain.

"Buddy?" Hutch said spiritlessly.

"It's okay" Starsky smiled softly, "Oh God! I've been a fool. The way I see it, this is enough proof that you are the brains of this duo, uh?" They both laughed, and then Starsky started crying. "I'm sorry, pal."

Hutch nodded and said, "Hey, hey! It's okay, buddy, don't cry. I know It's okay. I love you too, Starsk!" while tears ran down his eyes.

"Okay! Enough! Stop this corny shit!" Parry's disgusted tone came from behind.

It was too much for him. The hateful man couldn't accept such display of brotherly love, of the purest of loves, anymore, and he hammered the gun.

"You, Hutchinson, you know the rules. I hope this is enough warning. Now you go and get back there. You're going to stay put there!" he barked to Hutch and ordered him to get back to the stage where he had been before, but Hutch didn't move.

The blond-haired man didn't take his eyes off of Starsky's body. "Now, Hutchinson. I said now! Move!" Parry repeated.

The partners shared one last glance, and Hutch started leaving the platform behind. A few steps away from his buddy he turned and asked Parry.

"May I? Can you please... uncuff me, just for a while? I need to..." he thought of touching Starsky, he needed the contact, he needed to do it, but then he repented… "I - I need to pee," he said fearfully and almost defeated.

Parry laughed at Hutch's lack of bravery; the evil man knew what the blonde had longed to do, "Okay, relieve yourself... Over there." The Welsh signaled him to the back of the stairway, "I'm gonna uncuff you!", and so he did.

The terrified man walked toward the stairs next to the little stage and almost at its first step, and when he unzipped his fly he heard his tormentor saying, "Hey! In fact, that would be a great idea, you are very supportive, Detective; that's it! I'm going to let you stay loose. When you finish, I'm only going to put the cuffs in your hands but without the ropes… You know? I want to test your resilience here."

Hutch frowned, "What do you mean, check my resilience?" he asked worriedly and turned around.

The Welsh began walking toward him and put the cuffs on his wrists again while laughing viciously, "You don't figure out? You don't know? Test your ability to adapt to stressful situations. I am going to check your prowess as a coward friend."

"What do you mean?"

"Sit!" The Welsh said and walked away backward, leaving him alone, few steps from the stage without turning his back to him. "I won't tie you to the chair, not this time, but I am not going to allow you neither to walk or move. You can do it if you want. You'll be free to do it if you want." He opened his arms, mockingly and invited, "but...uh," he shook his head. "Tsk, tsk, I ain't giving you my permission, and you know which the consequences of disobeying my orders would cause to your partner. So I'll check your resilience, and you'll be released only to be sitting in that chair, watching. You only have to look at this "object" while I'm hurting him."

The heinous man turned to the brunet who was far enough to hear what he was saying and smiled dirtily.

Parry was excited and explained every next move as if he were giving a speech.

"You won't be allowed at first, to intervene in any physical engagement with the subject... Your pleasure, in the first stage of this experiment, will be limited just to enjoy the show as a mere spectator. I mean, not beyond the purely visual side of it all, otherwise, you know how it works." The Welsh assumed that the blond-haired man understood what he was saying.

For Hutch, it was impossible. Every word was beyond his comprehension. Hutch couldn't believe what he was hearing. It was surreal. He was desperate listening to every single impious word.

"You transgresses the rules, he'll be punished. Any little trick you try, he pays; you try to dodge, he pays; you talk when you're not supposed to, or conversely, he pays, okay? In a more advanced, a second phase of it, you'll be allowed to merge into the process, let's just say in a more active way. But let's see how it goes. What do you think?"

"Please!" Hutch felt like he was in the middle of one of those horror movies Starsky was so fond of. What Parry was saying was cruel and insane and absurd. "Please Parry, tie me!" he said through gritted teeth, almost in a whisper the menacing words they had been for so long stuck in his mouth.

"Nah, Nah, Nah." Parry laughed with no end. "Like I said Hutchinson, this multi-sensory experience is worth a lifetime. Believe me, you won't ever forget it. See something you like over there?" He signaled to Starsky's body with the gun, and he asked Hutch… "Peekaboo! He'll be all mine."

He finished smiling as Hutch looked up at him.

"Now, you move!"

Hutch started going to where the platform was, dejected, but then he stopped.

He wanted to fight.

He turned his back on everything, clenching his fists. He wanted to blow Parry's face, to riddle his filthy body, leaving it like a sieve full of bullet holes. He wanted to suffocate him with his bare hands, and Starsky's handcuffs that still tied him. He was enraged.

He had never felt this anguished and helpless before, not even when Gunther.

This man was far more hateful and sinister than the old man had been, but then, he knew better. If he did something that he did not suppose to do, his partner was going to suffer.

However, he couldn't help his reaction anymore, and risking everything, his own welfare and especially Starsky's, he yelled, threatening.

His back still to Parry and the brunet.

"Come on, Parry I'm telling you… You hear me? You tie me!"

Parry didn't answer. The blond man turned around to see.

"Sit down over there. Now!" Parry ordered him. "Remember I can blast his brain now and put him away out of his misery!"

So Hutch obeyed.

Parry didn't tie his legs to the chair, and then, he got back to Starsky.

On his way back to the brunet, Madoc turned and said.

"Don't move, Hutchinson."

And what the hell! Hutch felt an immense temptation to move and to go back and to try something, anything. So he stood and started walking straight to Parry like a madman.

"I think that you didn't listen to me, you son of a bitch" the blonde yelled.

When Hutch heard the gun being hammered again over his defenseless friend, he knew he was not going to be able to tolerate such pain.

So far, "this object" he ought to watch, turned out to be his best friend's body. How could someone be so evil?

At the mere sound, the blond turned over his heels, sat again and faced Parry, who was drawing his own gun at his partner at close range.

That sinister gesture reminded Hutch of the place in which he had to stay and the little role he had to play in this macabre manhunt. "Do you remember?" the persuasion had been sufficient and enough warning to discourage any creative ploy. "I said, stay put over there, Hutchinson!"

So he did.

While the wicked man gazed Hutch's listless movements, again in the platform, Parry breathed into Starsky's face.

The sound made the brunet looked up to catch Madoc's eye since he almost fainted. He said disgustingly. "David, babe, you have to follow all my rules tonight. If you resist, I'm gonna hurt your partner, okay?" a filthy pause.

"Okay," it was Starsky's flat response.

The threats had been made to both men, so he only had to start the game.

It was time.

**ACT 30\- 24 HOURS SURVIVAL-**

"I... uh, well. Case Number 1043, this is the body you've requested, Captain Dobey." The Personal Property Clark was holding a file in one hand and a plastic bag in the other. "Once you recognize the body and if this man turns out to be your Sergeant, you can fill in some forms and claim the personal possessions of the deceased," he shoved the plastic bag. "Or maybe he has a next of kin we should contact first?"

"Oh… yeah, yeah. Yes, he… Okay, okay. First, we're going in." Dobey said and took the deepest breath he could muster at the moment. Huggy was with him. Sam had stayed at the Precinct with Caroline; she hadn't been informed yet of the last finding, but she felt desolated. It had been 24 hours, and nobody knew nothing about Starsky. He was still missing.

They entered the cold room.

"This is the body."

The Deputy Medical Examiner ran the stainless steel, with a body bag on it and a tag tied to the body bag. The screech of the metal runners seemed to cut their veins and their breathing.

"Captain" Huggy nudged Dobey's elbow, "Hey, Captain, I'm feeling sick, I can't - I can't do this!" He turned around, he just couldn't.

"Okay, Huggy. I'll do it."

Huggy was standing beside Dobey with his back to the body bag; he could not hold back the pain when the zipper was being opened. The noise made him feel even chillier than the air was.

"Oh, God!" a long pause in which Huggy thought that he would cease to breathe happened. "God, God! He's not him, Huggy; he's not him." Dobey said in a soft whisper and exhaled so loudly he thought that he was going to deflate.

The slim, lanky man turned immediately and clung the rotund man.

"Thank Goodness, thank Goodness," Huggy said.

They released their tension.

They filled in the administrative forms that were requested and left the Morgue.

********************S&H********************

As they came out of the building in N Mission Rd, Dobey began telling Huggy, "You should not be so excited. Neither grateful nor happy. I mean we haven't found him yet. What if what Caroline says is correct? Starsky has disappeared for almost one day, for Christ's sake! He hasn't taken his medicines; he could be anywhere, and that cannot be good. Neither is Hutch. I mean what if? It's 2.30 PM, and he's also gone since yesterday noon. He didn't come to the Precinct today. Do you know if someone reported something about Hutch? If anyone has heard anything about him? At this point, I won't take any more chances, next thing I'll do I'm gonna put an APB on both of them."

When they arrived at the Station, all the Zebra detectives were waiting for them over there. They already knew that Starsky wasn't the dead man and were waiting for Dobey's orders. Huggy immediately called to The Pits, to all his cousins, snitches, and stoolies. Everyone.

He needed to know something, anything, about Hutch

"Nothing, Captain. Nobody knows anything so far… Yeah, this is not right. I mean, you really think now that they have been kidnaped, don't you?"

Dobey didn't answer. He was all business. "Call Chief Ryan. Call Dispatch and put an APB on both Detectives Starsky and Hutchinson. Simmons, Babcock, go to Venice Place and check on Hutch again."

"Okay, Captain, but where was the last place Hutch was hanging around?" Simmons asked hurriedly.

"The Leland Hotel. Yeah! Good idea! First, you go there, the Leland Hotel. That's a good idea. Go, now!"

The Captain dismissed his men and picked up the telephone.

"Mildred? Dobey here. Patch me through Todesco. What? He doesn't answer?! I wanna know what has he found out about Gunther at St. Quentin. Patch me through him. Keep calling! I'll stay here."

"Captain? Have you checked Bromley? The man I've talked to you about. He's met Hutch too," Huggy asked timidly.

"Yeah, we already did. But nothing. Meredith's in charge of that investigation and you know she would do everything for these two, well, especially for Starsky. She heard through the grapevine about his disappearance, and she's insisted on helping." the Captain stated the obvious about Meredith's feelings.

"You mean that nothing turned up?" Huggy made a grim face; he felt he had no place to go.

"Nothing so far, this Russell Bromley or whatever his name is is not listed. He has no driver license; he's not on the electoral roll neither he has any criminal record at the Police Department. There's nothing about him. I think the man doesn't exist. We also searched for him in the Universities and local High Schools, but nothing. We went to City Hall to check on his complaint against your restaurant, but he gave a fake address too. So zero, null, nothing."

"Did you try in the Library?" Huggy asked out of nowhere.

"What? In the Library? Public Library?" Dobey felt one bout of understanding that went through his head. "Wait a minute..." Suddenly everything seemed to fit in each correct place. "Wait a minute, Huggy," he thought he would burst. "Parry," he whispered.

"What about Parry?" Huggy asked.

Recognition hit the Captain in a second; it was August 26 and the day before he had just talked with Hutch about the sick killer and the imminent arrival of Sunday the 28th.

"What? What about him?" Huggy asked again confused and tried to follow.

"Oh God! How can we have skipped this possibility, how? Oh! How can I have been so distracted? We've lost 24 hours, and we are at just 24 hours from..." he stopped saying.

"What do you mean, Captain? You're scaring the hell outta me!" Huggy said horrified.

"What if Parry has something to do with this, uh, Huggy? I've been talking to Hutch about it yesterday morning…"

Suddenly Meredith entered Dobey's Office, at the mention of Parry's name, she got the goosebumps.

"Captain, he can't be," she said distraught. "Kidnapping a Police Officer is not his MO, besides Hutch is…" She stopped and opened his big brown eyes; everybody realized immediately.

"Starsky. David Starsky", Dobey said.

"David… of all names," she added.

Dobey started barking orders at a frantic rate.

He was desperate.

He asked for Parry's files.

They started reading them.

They called the City Hall, Dobey remembered the conversation about something related to one Neighborhood. He asked for the list of Neighborhoods, but for the life of him, he couldn't remember which one the clue Hutch had mentioned was.

"Damn he said something about the name of the area, what was it?" The Captain thought, tirelessly.

The entire Metropolitan Police Division took to heart the task of finding Starsky and Hutch; the cops discarded all the possibilities, frantically and they evaluated the antecedents of Parry's cases. The very idea that the fellow officers might have fallen into the hands of the serial murderer was creepy.

When Dobey read the recovered file from Parry's first arrest and realized, who he was, that he was the officer who had arrested him in the sixties, he thought it had been already too late. He was sure his men were trapped.

Though it wasn't his MO, Ressler's words about Parry's thirst for revenge against his captor got to him. That thing and the fact that Starsky's name was David had become the cornerstone of research, undoubtedly, so they believed it possible.

It was possible that Starsky had been kidnaped by the Welsh; that the same fate could have happened to Hutch.

36 hours had passed since the beginning of everything… It was Friday, at 10 PM.

Dobey felt his name written in revenge.

********************S&H********************

Parry started examining the available options and the courses of action to achieve his final expectation.

He knew the abstract and the purpose of all his frenzy. He knew the methods; the strategies, the procedures, he craved them; everything about the scientific reasons and the primary idea… So he only had to reach a conclusion, he had to achieve the result of his conducted research.

After these two days, he would prove his point to the world, and primarily the reason why nobody loved him.

And he was going to be atrocious to carry it out.

He sat on the landing of the basement stairs for more than 20 minutes with his hands deep in the pocket of his jeans. He looked as if he was designing. His eyes fixed on Starsky, who slowly repeated Hutch's name like in one of Simone's chanting.

"Hutch, Hutch? Hutch, please, where are you, buddy, Hutch?" he whispered.

"Hey, save your breaths, honey," Parry stood and touched the brunet's face.

Starsky was shivering, it was chilly, and he was wet, drenched. The rain was being spat from the broken windows and had flooded the basement floor in rounded puddles.

It was a downpour; it had never stopped raining since Thursday night and the cold wind breathed into his face and into Starsky's, who he could say was freezing too, though being summer.

That was not good.

So, he gathered his thoughts. To prevent any unexpected trauma due to the cop's poor health condition, he had deployed a preventive strategy with the useful information beforehand provided by Hope's Guidelines. He had the drugs that were needed; he had the instruments... he could be able to weather any storm. So, after the first exasperating twelve hours sleep's term and the next twenty-four hours in utter medical abandonment, Parry decided that the best criteria to follow would be to administer the victim a huge dose of MDMA. That medication was recommended to diminish someone's torpor and anxiety. In Starsky's case, it would be managed in a significant dose to induce euphoria and elevate his body temperature, which was persistently cold at contact.

Besides, it might give him some pain relief and refuel the drug's stimulatory effects.

That was, what he expected.

He wanted his David to be fully awake.

He cursed the fucking bout of narcolepsy, which had made him lose too much precious time. And he didn't want that to happen again. So he wanted to prevent it.

Surely Starsky was depressed, and a dose of Ecstasy plus Ritalin would provide him the so much needed alertness. He was going to be sure that he and David would enjoy their final moments on Earth together and watchful.

He wanted him to leave with his eyes wide open.

Hence, for the first time in the first 36 hours kidnapping, Mad offered Starsky something to drink.

His goal, to achieve more than 24 hours' survival.

"Come on, David, take your pills, they are gonna make you feel awfully good."

Starsky never realized the pills he gave him weren't his regular pills. The brunet was very confused, so after he took them, Parry approached the rusty surface gratefully.

It was Friday, at 9 pm, and he knew that the pills would take 20 minutes to take effect.

He decided he would enjoy those twenty minutes and stared at his prey in awe while he was still lax over the table, and before everything starts.

And so he did.

David Starsky was hypnotizing, magnificent.

He was tempting, arousing.

Madoc started from his face, his piercing blue eyes that were beyond the power of speech. He touched the cop's kinky dark hair, the full lips and his firm chin. He was a sculpture with his features chiseled. He stroked his shoulders, fiercely and just straight down to the length of his arms to his wrists. He felt Starsky's stretched arms, wide-open and muscular stuck in the shackles, and the strong hands clenched into white-knuckled claws on the edge of the plank.

Oh, how he liked that the man was scared.

Besides the fact that Parry realized that the brunet was fully aware, Starsky's panic fueled his desire even more. The brunet's moans sounded like molasses to him; his gasps were so sexy despite his cancer that he even liked the sounds that he made in the back of his throat when he couldn't breathe. Nothing got Parry hotter than hearing his whimpers and gags, his whines and cries that emanated from the back of his throat.

He felt infatuated.

"I'm gonna lick every single inch of you, my David," He warned him.

So he continued toward the broad chest and his defined breastbone, feeling Starsky's flickering heart, throbbing there.

Madoc wanted to rip him in two, his sculpted abs, one by one. He was virile; "_you are very attractive…" _ he thought. "Oh, you taste so good. You drive me crazy, David. I want you to be my slave for eternity. I want to be over you. I'm gonna show you who the boss here is, lover boy!"

The torturer felt an extreme and intense erection. The most primitive lust he had ever experienced, the least evolved form of sex, purely animal like his desire for him, which wasn't human.

"_He. Is. Not. Human."_

Parry played back the words like a recorded tape in his mind.

He felt so uncontrollable that he pressed his forehead into Starsky's heaving stomach and rubbed his belly, licked him.

He was at it, for more than an hour.

Sucking, nibbling and worshipping with lips and teeth and tongue every single inch of the brunet.

Starsky writhed wordlessly beneath him.

Hutch couldn't take it anymore.

Parry wasn't doing anything more than touching him.

Nauseatingly.

Hutch thought he would throw up.

"David, you're the sexiest thing I've ever seen! I want you so bad! No one has ever made me come as hard as you did."

Madoc Parry took pleasure in the new feeling. He wanted to press his hands from Starsky's breastbone to his navel. He felt like he was doing him damage, but barely, and that was what he enjoyed. Since his skin was hot, the beautiful patina of perspiration made him look brighter and dazzling. The man at his mercy kept making little moans every time he pressed his hands against him as if he was sucking his air. The torturer loved the feeling of the tight muscles under the soft skin of Starsky's belly and the soft deepness beyond. "_I wish I could pierce him, I want to crush him in the stomach and the chest. Crush him, squeeze the love out of him"_. Parry thought, "I want to break you, asphyxiate you… I'm worst than cancer! You sensual, carnal desire!"

And for that purpose, he remembered, he had the stones.

He had thousands of them.

He took the stones, which were inside a bucket and were cold, frozen and put them over the brunet's belly first and then up over his chest. One by one, lots of them, counting them. Starsky shuddered at first, at the difference in temperature since he was boiling.

Minutes later he started trembling until Parry heard him saying a plea to stop.

The poor brunet was being subjected to have each second more and more weight over him. Heavier and heavier. Placed on his stomach first, since his tormentor was sat straddling him, and then on his chest, which was becoming too hard for him to breathe.

"Ian, I can't - Can't breathe," Starsky said.

"I'm not Ian, David. Remember me? You were searching for me for more than one year, and now, I've let you found me!" he said ironically.

Starsky opened his tired eyes and remembered. He spat at his tormentor's face.

Parry crushed him harder and even harder. More and more weight, more and more pressure.

"Ough, hurts" Starsky whispered.

Instead, he crushed him even more. He wanted him to stop breathing.

"You know, Hutchinson," A long pause and the Welsh turned around, "Hutchinson?" he shouted, "You weren't paying attention?"

Hutch had closed his eyes since the beginning of everything.

He had been warned that he wasn't allowed to talk, so, for that matter, he didn't want to see. But now Parry was forcing him to open his eyes.

To watch, to stare and hear his sadistic, medieval tortures.

"Good!" He said sure that the blond-haired man was looking at his sickening games. "I was saying… You know, I think I could make him stop? I would like to provoke this erotic asphyxiation until I perform the chest compressions and give him the kiss of life to prevent the fatal suffocation to occur. Would you like me to do it? You want me to save him? I will rescue him. I have that power." Hutch started to get agitated. It was too much to take. "But that's not the time yet. For now." Parry finished.

Starsky's muffled moans and whining were irrational, illogical and inappropriate.

Hutch needed the absurdity to end.

"Stop it! Stop it! You're gonna kill him. Please," the blond man couldn't help but yell at the killer.

"Damn interference!" Parry thought when he heard Hutchinson's shouts. However, the blond-haired man's screams made Parry keep going, most definitely. Fueled him.

He kept squeezing Starsky, crushing him with his bare hands until the brunet, almost at the verge of losing control, screamed louder even than the pain. A visceral, heartbreaking cry… while Hutchinson's voice rang behind. "Leave him alone, leave him alone please, please, Oh God! You hurt him; you're gonna hurt him!" Hutch began to mourn. Again.

This time, Hutch's interruption, his rant, was very distracting and it drove Parry totally crazy. "Oh, damn! Stop it! You make me feel very, very angry Hutchinson; I warned you! And because of it, David will be severely punished!"

Hutch opened his eyes, frightened and became voiceless. He lost the ability to talk.

Parry shook off all the stones, throwing them to the floor furiously. Hutch shrunk at the sound of them, and then, he took the loose end of the stranded wire rope which was hanging from a pulley on the ceiling above Starsky. He lifted the brunet from his waist, and he passed the wire below him and then, swiftly the short man climbed on the table and put the loose end back through the pulley to fix it.

Parry squeezed the rope very carefully around the sick man's waist and torso, and then, he began to hoist his weak and lax body. Up where the flexion of his legs and arms allowed him. "You shut the fuck up, Hutchinson or I'll stretch him till his limbs torn off his body!"

Starsky's body was almost 5 feet above from the table.

His limbs down, his waist rose and dripped slowly along because of the wire's cuts. He was weeping blood.

The sight was unnerving but very exciting.

And then, Mad realized that he could make it even better.

While Starsky was suspended, Parry unhooked the four shackles at full speed, excited in advanced at his visualization.

What he would provoke would be like a piece of art.

"_Oh! I am so talented…"_ The Welsh thought.

So this time, he crossed the wire rope, twice, three times in three different spots on the cop's back. Below Starsky's waist, his butt, and his upper back through his armpits to provide a larger area to support and finally, he hoisted the brunet up swiftly.

Starsky's chest was almost touching the ceiling in a delicate balance, twelve feet above the metal plate.

He looked like a work of art.

David's broken body, The body, bent in two.

It was the paradigm of martyrdom.

Parry closed his eyes for an instant, at his own and personal Pietà and felt like Michelangelo.

Up above, the brunet contorted like a whip because of the violent and unexpected impact. His legs, arms and head backward in an awkward, unnatural position. Parry tightened the wire abruptly until he fixed the end to one of the shackles. He let the poor man there, bouncing like a swing, uncontrollably.

He seemed to flutter like an inverted butterfly.

The line of his broken body, with the sharp ribs that were almost protruding from his incipient thinness, ignited Parry.

He was ablaze in lust.

Sparks of pain were shooting up Starsky's spine while the Welsh could hear his choking gasping. Through Hutch's lips, he could also hear the brunet's sufferance that echoed through his partner. Parry experienced the feeling of helplessness of an adolescent; he was aware of his insanity but powerless to prevent it.

It was a fantasy he never even knew he had.

So he started to jerk off.

That was the instant in which Hutch knew that Parry had them coaxed into his nightmare and had the winning hand.

********************S&H********************

"Do you like it when I touch myself like this, David?" He shouted to the suspended man.

Starsky fought every instinct he had to stay still. If he moved, he hurt, or he would collapse, and Parry would continue. His back was killing him, and he started feeling drowsy. The heat radiated from his limbs full of blood, but his midsection and torso seemed like frozen. He drifted in and out of consciousness, and he didn't know for how long he had stayed hung. However, he must have twitched or made a face, a sound or something because all of a sudden, Parry unleashed the rope and pulled him down, throwing him to his unwelcoming destiny.

He fell all way down to the table, crashing hard against the cold surface.

The sound he made was obnoxious

"Oh God No! No, no no, Starsky!" Hutch said with a sharp cry, uncontrollably.

Starsky had hit it hard, and the iron was so cold, that now with the burning effects of the Ecstasy in his body, the mere contact shocked him.

This time, he fell facedown and lied down, prone, with the left underarm behind his back on one side, and the upper right thigh and the knee drew upward toward the chest.

"Liar!" Parry shouted all of a sudden "You couldn't see me from up there, David. You are a liar."

Starsky didn't understand.

His head hurt. His stomach, his chest, his legs hurt. The brunet was confused; he couldn't breathe, and his body began to tremble uncontrolled. The blow had been so hard that he realized that his efforts wouldn't be enough for him to stay alive. He sensed he was going to die, that his tortured gasping was not going to suffice to keep him going. He needed to breathe but just couldn't do it.

Parry approached him, lustfully, but realized that he was so out of it that he lifted his torso in his hands. He straightened him to ease his chest wall and let it be able to rise and fall with respiration. He embraced him letting the abdomen fall forward and allowing the muscles to regain their tone; then he cradled David rocking him back and forth to comfort him.

It was a fleeting and peaceful moment; that didn't last since Starsky started convulsing and vomiting again. The intense, violent spasms left him drained and again on the verge of unconsciousness.

"Come on angel, take your pills."

Parry gave Starsky yet again another dose of Ecstasy and the methylphenidate and then offered him the oxygen mask while cradled in his arms.

He stroked his hair, kissed his forehead and caressed him.

They were that way for eternity, and Hutch could tell that Starsky started drifting into a painless slumber.

The brunet looked exhausted, and he was burning with fever in Madoc's arms.

Parry was afraid that it was too much.

David was all wet but then, the Welsh was mesmerized by the way that his pale white and translucent hands slipped and looked against Starsky's suntanned skin, so he did nothing but contemplate him.

He would let him rest a little until the next step.

Parry felt absorbed in the body image entwined in his hands.

It made no sense to him, he thought, but he knew that forever his heart would linger in this wet and at the same time rugged and fertile land, which was Starsky's body; he realized he was always going to long for him. So he kissed him again and said aloud. "Who would have believed that I would have fallen in love with someone, finally? How unfair this is. I want you to live, and I have to kill you."

"You do what you have to do, Parry. You… kill me!" The raspy voice came unexpectedly.

"You're awake, David?" Parry asked him, but he was already out again.

"Don't, Starsk, don't..." Hutch shouted desperate, listening to his partner's cracked voice.

"Shut up, Hutchinson! This is between David and me."

Madoc hugged Starsky.

He roamed over the brunet's chest, over his shoulders and finally sank into the silken texture of his overly masculine chest hair. They were like that for a long time. He admired his prisoner with desire. "You look like a little boy here in my arms, baby. I like to caress you with tenderness. You're beautiful."

Starsky looked at him, his eyes lost and full of tears.

Sometimes Parry could be gentle and delicate, but then, he could be rough and hard, so he continued his ministrations until his mood decided and until the drugs set in. He knew, sooner or later, the excitement of the Ecstasy would begin again.

"Okay, David, listen to me, good looking, this is what's gonna happen now," Parry said to Starsky while in his crib. "You're gonna let me strip your shirt off of you because it's all wet. I want you to be shirtless; I need to see your chest, your scars..." Through the closed shirt, he caressed the longest scar on his chest. "Then, you are gonna strut your sexy ass, in those painted pants you have, straight to that rope over there, you see?" He signaled to the frame at his right. "I'm gonna restrain you again. I'm gonna tie your arms and feet from that frame and then I will hoist you and I will keep you suspended in the air, just to admire your body. Boy, how I like the sight of you like that, floating like an angel in space" He sighed and shook his head. "And then, you're gonna wait for me, you are not gonna do a thing unless I tell you to. Got it? But first, I need you to walk, I just want you to walk. I love seeing the way you do it."

Starsky nodded dispirited, trying to swallow around the lump in his throat.

He didn't believe that he could stand up indeed. Less, that he could walk or bear another round of tortures, but then, he realized that he couldn't prevent it to happen either. At least he knew that the effects of the drugs were making him feel stronger and excited, so he decided that he wouldn't miss his last chance.

He had to do it, he had to walk and have the opportunity to move by his willpower, and so, he would take the risk.

That would give him an edge, the ace up his sleeve!

"Where's Hutch?" he asked Parry, suddenly and still in his arms.

"Right here."

"I need to see him," he said bluntly.

"You don't make the rules here, David."

"I don't care. I'm dying, and I need to see him."

Starsky sounded dejected but yet determined to get what he wanted. Parry wondered what was it so alluring to this man that he could get what he wanted, despite all odds as if were a snake charmer, and then he granted.

"Okay," he shook his head in disbelief. "Hutchinson, C'mere."

Parry disentangled the beautiful body from his arms and laid him on the table.

Starsky felt so cold that he curled himself into a fetal position, he knew he had to force his unique mental communication with his partner this time if he wanted to succeed.

Hutch would understand.

********************S&H********************

"Hi, buddy!" Hutch said mesmerized at the sight of his friend. He tried to touch him, but he was afraid, so the blond rose his eyes to Parry asking for permission and mercifully, Parry uncuffed him and allowed him to do it.

"Hi!" Starsky murmured in a whisper; he sounded relieved.

They stared at each other, silently. The blond-haired man started caressing his buddy's face. Hutch looked at Starsky's fair and dark blue eyes.

His usually deep indigo eyes were otherworldly and diaphanous, this time; Hutch was shocked.

Starsky's eyes glittered in their pure beauty.

Since they were not usually full of tears, the view of his friend's eyes so full of them took Hutch by surprise, bewildered him.

The blond felt that he could look through them, like always, but this time was different, and that fact chilled his soul. As if they weren't dark anymore. There was a light behind Starsky's eyes as if the end was imminent.

Together, they looked ethereal and enveloped by their soul's energy, a noble virtue that surrounded them. Perfect.

Parry couldn't resist.

Hutch was spellbound in Starsky's unearthly quality, and the Welsh hated that certainty. The blond wanted to leave everything behind, forget everything and just hug his partner, hold him to keep him for later; secure him for his tomorrow; save him.

Hutch felt that everything made sense.

That they shouldn't waste what maybe would be their last time together.

On the other hand, Starsky felt humbled at the sight of his trustful, reliable and loyal friend. He felt secure, relieved and safe.

A sense of completeness flooded his soul.

The same feeling that he'd self-deprived since the beginning of his nightmare reached him. After all and in the midst of it all, he realized that he was not alone.

Starsky realized that he had never been, although he had tried so hard to be. However, he knew he couldn't indulge in self-reproach or let alone, in self-pity since time was of the essence.

The ridiculously short time he had.

Together they could change everything; they could live forever, but together.

Parry felt disgusted.

Starsky's efforts were overwhelming, so the blond decided he would play along and make his partner feel comfortable. Hutch could feel that the brunet was trying to tell him something though he didn't like soapy scenes. "_What wouldn't I do for this man?"_ Hutch thought at the sight of his friend curled over the table, trying to communicate.

"I'm sorry, Hutch that you have to endure this" Starsky was in such pain, he could hardly get the words out of his mouth, but yet he had to be brave. It was at that moment when they should prove themselves, the way they were able to forge that immediate, mysterious personal bond they had.

"Oh, Starsk, you're beyond repair. I'm the one who's sorry here. I don't know what to do; I wish I could."

"You can… You always could," the Brunet cooed.

"We. Together, Starsk, we always did it together, it'll be okay."

"This time too, buddy. I will do it now, We'll do it together. Now."

Hutch realized that Starsky was trying to tell him something, Starsky was going to do something to try to get rid of the Welsh, so he smiled and bowed his head. He leaned over him and put his head over his friend's head. "_I hear you, I'll follow you"_ in such an atavistic enduring gesture of their friendship that was the signal he'd follow up him like always.

Starsky nodded in recognition and kept saying.

"I just wanted to tell you, before everything, that the decision I've made, about my cancer, was a coward decision. That now I know that I've been selfish and that I won't keep on being selfish or coward in the future. I'll do what I have to do. Even with little future, I have. Whatever." He shrugged and gave him his usual askew smile, and then sighed. "Seeing you here, I realized that love's inspiring; I can do anything, I can go everywhere. So whatever might happen, you don't have to be scared or worried, buddy. Everything will be all right." He nodded and opened his big blue eyes, reassuringly "I'll try. Remember Fargo? You are my rock, Hutch." he made a knowing glance, seeking for understanding. He sighed and made a pause, gathering his strength. Hutch nodded.

Starsky raised his eyebrows again; he winked, "You know that I ain't give up easily, I rather die from my natural causes than because of this…" He rolled his eyes and grinned his crooked smile, and his pretense was voiced in that instant, decimated by his last ironic remark as always. "After all Hutch, yeah... I'm still Starsky, and I don't like soapy scenes!"

So before Parry would grab him and take him to face his final destiny, he would ensure that Hutch had understood.

"_Whatever happens or would happen, nothing could ever erase what we meant to each other and who we had been."_

Parry could kill Starsky, but he could never kill them both.

That was what Hutch had been able to read through Starsky's eyes. He had a plan; together they had a plan, and everything would be all right. He would be his rock.

However, their chuckles and whispers became very disturbing to Parry, indeed, and he worried. So, after a few minutes of conversation between the friends the Welsh started yelling, urging Starsky to begin the next stage of his filthy plot. After all, he was getting restless and desirous.

"Enough! You move!" He barked an order to Hutch, "Move that sack of bones you are, Hutchinson. That's what you are. An unpleasant and unwelcome interruption! You had your moment. Stop to interfere. Go back to your chair, now!"

The flaxen-haired man looked sideways to the menacing presence of the Welsh and snorted.

"It's okay, Hutch, go!" Starsky put his arm over his buddy's arm and invited him to go.

After that, Parry realized that Starsky was trying to get up from the table to fulfill his commitment. He also noticed that he was visibly dizzy, so he ran to his aid and held him.

"You okay?"

Parry supported the weak man who was trying to stand.

The brunet composed himself and took a deep breath nodding yes, and then, as his captor had told him before, Parry started to unbutton his shirt to take it off.

There they were stood, face to face.

Starsky was three inches taller, still sturdy, what an irony.

After he had taken him his shirt off, he tossed it to the floor and caressed his torso with both hands down to his bottom.

"Go!" he signaled him before leaning in and nipped sharply at his hip.

"_My chance, a warning,"_ Starsky thought, and he rose his eyes to the blonde, who immediately threw his chair to the floor, creating a diversion. "_Fargo's rock,"_ Hutch remembered.

The brunet reacted.

With Hutch at his sight, he hit Parry with all the strength he could muster. The cop gave the Welsh a sharp blow on his nape. The shorter man fell at his feet, and Starsky bent down and took Hutch's gun that was visible and still clutched into his waist. The sick man pointed it straight at Parry's head while the Welsh was sprawled on the floor.

He felt dizzy and unstable, but his graceful movements didn't seem to presage any failure, and he raised his eyes to Hutch, triumphant.

Starsky felt healthy and alive. He was overjoyed.

The distraction was mortal. He didn't know that Parry had his own gun hidden in his leg. So the madman, taking advantage of the two friends' excitement, took it off in one swift motion.

The bullet found Hutch midway, hit him on the left side and knocked him down to the floor.

The unexpected outcome gave Parry the opportunity to subdue Starsky, who was squatted beside him, yet again, knocking him to the ground and pinning him with his knee on his chest while he heartbreakingly shouted.

"Huuuutch!"

"You shut up, David!" He hit him twice without mercy, and that made the brunet let lose his piece.

Parry took Starsky madly from his hair.

"You made me angry, David, you son of a bitch!"

And he threw the brunet's head violently to the ground. He slapped him again and dragged him from his legs on the floor, face upward, toward the place where the framework that he had planned to hang him was. He turned him and put him upside down like a rag doll. He took Starsky's left foot and restrained him to the shackle, doing the same with his right foot, thus leaving him face down with both feet tied, on the wet floor.

He stretched the brunet's arms over his head in front of him.

Worried and hurriedly, he got to see how Hutchinson was doing, since he should check the state he was in, or otherwise the blond would miss the show.

"Good, it's not deep. Does it hurt? The bullet caught your side, scraped your ribs but it's good, I'm going to make a tourniquet and avoid the bleeding, okay?."

"Leave me alone," Hutch said despondent and still on the ground, he had just recovered from the shock.

The gunshot had entered on the side of his torso, but apparently, it hadn't hit anything of importance on its way.

"Oh, come on Hutchinson, don't get moody."

Hutch tried to dodge him. He didn't care if he bled to death. Moreover, he wanted that to happen.

"Hey, don't be whimsical, doesn't suit you. He's the one with the boyish charm and the temper tantrums, not you, besides if you turn into a wayward, you know who will pay."

"He'll pay anyway," Hutch said dispiritedly.

Parry got surprised, Hutch was right.

"Sure thing, yeah," he admitted reluctantly, "but not because of you," he started preparing his ministrations, "or you rather…"

"I rather die!" Hutch interrupted him. "I want you to kill me."

"That you will not see, maybe it'll be the other way around."

"You kill me! Now." Hutch begged for, desperate.

"And hurt you? Oh no, I won't do that."

"Why not? Why don't you like to hurt me?"

"Well, I thought that I already did…" Parry smiled cruelly and looked to where Starsky was motionless and unconscious on the floor, Hutch held a sob. "Oh! I'm sorry," the hateful man continued, "you mean physically? Oh! I get your point, but I don't enjoy physical pain inflicted on you."

"Why? Why not me? Why him?"

"Because he's beautiful."

**ACT 31\- THE WICKER MAN -**

After the gunshot had scraped off the blonde-haired man's left side, Parry managed to handle him quickly. So the taller man was yet again, sat and tied to his chair, perfectly still, watching. He had done an excellent job with his wound. And also he had injected directly into his bloodstream a large dose of Haloperidol since Hutch had refused to take the pills, and he had to get more "creative."

He was happy.

The relaxing juice would ensure him that Hutchinson would be a tranquil witness of everything, it was going to grant him 6 to 8 hours of peacefulness. In fact, he did want him to be alert though not much alertness. Alert but no invigorated. Haloperidol was just perfect for that.

He approached Starsky, who was lying on the floor and injected him with a clear fluid, Hutch could see from a distance.

Parry lifted the limp and barely conscious man quickly, and embraced him, tying his hands.

He hung the dark-haired man in a crucifixion-style though with his legs wide open and he abandoned him during a couple hours while he organized everything, businesslike.

It was 11 PM.

It had taken some time, but he had finished.

He had prepared the instruments.

The rod, the whip, the clubs, and the cattle prod.

He would start to perform his methodic bashing, his pummeling, undisturbed, and he would enjoy it.

"Hello David, did you miss me?"

The mortification had been planned, but the outcome was going to be unforeseen.

He could not afford to lose him before the end time. It was 1 AM on Saturday. He was 23 hours ahead. Therefore, the punishment, this time had to be slow and systematic.

He would torture him consistently though with extremely cautious.

He walked away from Starsky's body, his work. He was gaining perspective as an old painter did and enjoyed the surreal installation; he smiled at the image.

He liked the possibility to combine elements of his mind and produce illogical and startling effects like those he was going to provoke and was going to witness. He had so much enjoyed in the past the lack of foresight, the surprise, the bizarre and grotesque reactions that his attacks had generated on his victims, and this was not an ordinary victim. This David, among everybody else, was the best of them and this time he even would have a witness.

Therefore, after the uplifting observation, he decided he would let his evil spirit takes over him. He would let it carry himself through the most tortuous paths that his mind would suggest him, where his attack would be so surprising that neither he might even envision.

"Do you know the legend of the wicker man, Hutchinson? There's a Brit movie called, 'The Wicker Man.' Do you know it? Have you watched it?"

In his induced stupor, Hutch felt nauseated, but he understood. It had been two hours since the monster had injected him with the drugs, and now its effects were at its best, polluting his entire system, but he understood.

"Parry, please…" he said. The blond knew damn well, what he was talking.

"Hey, don't get scared, I'm not an arsonist, I ain't gonna burn him… well, just a little maybe, small wounds but, do you know the story? Want me to tell you the story? What about you, David?"

Starsky had awakened, so he looked at him. The brunet was silent and controlled every single movement his torturer made.

"I know you love to go to the movies. I guess that's not only Travolta; well, I hope so," the Welsh laughed and walked over him, dirtily, and stroked his chest "Have you watched it? The Wicker …"

"Shut up, Parry!" Hutch interrupted him and screamed desperately.

"Okay, okay," He opened his arms, "but David here seems to be very interested. Don't you, good-looking?" He touched Starsky's face; he raised his face from the jaw violently. "Come on, lover boy! You're the most wonderful audience I've ever had. I want to tell you this ancient legend. It's a pagan ritual that you should pay attention to. You know I worship the Old Pagan, David? And you, Hutchinson? What do you think?"

A deadly silence filled the air; no one knew what was going to happen. Nobody, except Parry.

For a moment, the obnoxious man disappeared from Starsky and Hutch's sight, and he went behind one of the many folding screens that were everywhere as if he was looking for something. They could hear the noises which Parry made by discarding objects that were not the needed ones.

"Here it is!" They heard him say. "Mh, I guess this place is too quiet. We're gonna listen to some music, aren't we? Do you wanna hear some music, David?"

Parry started walking to whereas he had put the turntable.

He showed Starsky the chosen LP. Due to the disinterest on the cop's behalf and the lack of response, on his way back to the record player, Parry hit Starsky in the back with one rod. A violent, unexpected punishment.

An acute scream was expelled out from the brunet's lungs.

That was the first punch.

"You son of a bitch!" Hutch shouted in despair.

Parry turned around to the source of the voice, "You're tough, blondie! Hey, quite a pair you are, boys!"

"You can sink in hell, Parry!" Hutch said indignantly.

"You? Want me to do that?" Another blow to Starsky's back and another desperate, piercing cry came from the brunet's lips. Hutch closed his eyes; he felt miserable.

"No!" the frustrated cop said.

"What, Hutchinson? What about it? You didn't want me to go to hell, or you didn't mean to hear your partner's screaming?"

"I'm begging you, stop hurting him!"

"Now you beg? Oh, Hutchinson, you should have thought before about this. I care for him; I value my David. I am not like you who have always humiliated him. I witnessed your humiliations before so nobody has told me."

"Stop please!" Hutch was on the verge of breaking.

"Hey! What's wrong? What do you think? We were talking about music here, and that was music! His shouts are like music to me! What do you wanna hear, uh?" The Welsh gave a devilish laugh.

Hutch got scared; he murmured, "Don't hit him, please?"

"Okay," and the Welsh lowered the instrument and started rummaging again between LP's. "You and your classic taste, you are so sophisticated that I'm sure you don't like the way your partner sings neither the way he talks, do you?"

The only sounds that Parry could hear were Starsky's painful respirations trying to control the massive physical pain and Hutch's desperate respirations attempting to control, despite the drugs, the excruciating mental pain.

And in the midst of it all, the music.

"Oh, of course, I forgot you think he's just a Brooklynites' scumbag, don't you? Or that's not what you think about him?" Hutch was silent, barely controlling his rage. Parry continued talking. "Whatever. Listen, I'm sure you'll like this, this would be a good one, the proper one, lemme see… bet you heard this before" and he started moving his fingers as if remembering the melody while the chords and the lyrics of Dies Irae began pervading the air.

He repeated each word.

_"Day of wrath, the day of anger will dissolve the world in ashes as foretold by David and the Sibyl. Great trembling there will be when the Judge descends from heaven to examine all things closely."_

He recited the whole Verse of the terrible and ominous song while he circled around Starsky's body, looking at him, craving for him and returning to the folding screen, determined to change the music again.

"Do you remember, Hutchinson? Or maybe this one suits you better?"

He took the arm of the turntable and the chords of Mozart's Requiem started aloud.

"_Confutatis maledictis, flammis acribus addictis, voca me cum Benedictus…"_

"I kneel with submissive heart, my contrition is like ashes, help me in my final condition." Parry recited theatrically. "Do you know the English version of Mozart's Requiem, Hutchinson? Beautiful, isn't it?"

Hutch felt nauseated and scared. He couldn't take it anymore, "Turn off the music, please, Parry."

"You don't like it? I thought that a well-bred, a real educated fine man like you Hutchinson would appreciate good classical music. What about this one, instead?"

Another change, all of them, funeral's marches. "Oh!" Parry shrugged "Maybe this one is more like Starsky."

Parry was at the old turntable yet again and picked the pick-up, and the screech of the vinyl permeated the air while Marillion's 'Forgotten Son,' started crying aloud.

Shouting... because the sound was dreadful, terrifying and creepy, and the lyrics were even worse.

"_Death in the shadows he'll maim you, he'll wound you, he'll kill you._

_For a long forgotten cause, on not so foreign shores._

_Boys baptized in wars, Morphine, chill scream, bad dream._

_Serving as numbers on dog tags, flak rags, sandbags…_

_Your flesh will always creep, tossing turning sleep._

_The wounds that burn so deep._

_Forgotten sons, forgotten sons, forgotten sons_

_And so as I patrol in the valley of the shadow of the tricolor._

_I must fear evil for I am, but mortal and mortals can only die…_

_Who orders desecration, mutilation, verbal masturbation._

_To eliminate those who would trespass against you._

_For whose is the kingdom, the power, the glory forever and ever, Amen._

_Halt who goes there, Death, approach friend._

_You're just another coffin on its way down the emerald aisle…_

_Forgotten Sons, Just another Forgotten Son."_

Everything was incredibly lurid and morbid. Gruesome was such a poor adjective to describe and express the frightfulness that surrounded them. The music, the lights; Starsky there, hanging like a towering Effigy, stripped. His bare chest was shining with sweat and fear, reddened by bruises and injuries, shivering with his hands tied. Hutch saw his buddy's face that was horrified, waiting for the final sacrifice to happen, to the Bonfire to begin.

"_I can't believe what is going on here, I feel too far gone…"_ the partners thought.

"Parry, please, you put an end to this nightmare and let him go. What are you trying to prove? That you have power over him, over me? Please?" Hutch said entirely defeated, at most the drugs were starting to wearing off.

"Oh, you are dumb and coward too, Hutchinson. You can die from fear or panic." He shook his head, "But, David here, look. Look at him how strong and tough he is." So he did it again, strike him, once, twice. "See?" The Welsh said, satisfied at Starsky's endurance. "He has nothing to fear. He's conquered the evil once. He already died once, Hutchinson. He's not like you; he is not like me. He died once, and he came back. You are the Sun, David!" Parry started laughing; he felt whole and absolute. "You know, pagan societies offer a human sacrifice in the event of crop failure. A celebration, for ensuring a plentiful harvest for the upcoming year, and I want to offer up you, David. Provide you!" His hands were all over Starsky. "I've been disguised during all my life until this day, I've joined the procession of sinners. Like them, I cavort through life performing harmless sacrifices to the various lesser gods. You know that I killed six before you, don't you? And seven times I did it in the past too. Remember? Seeing you, I realized I wasted my time. You are the God, David, the sun, the only one, and a grimmer sacrifice awaits you: This sacrifice!"

He started hitting him, with the club and his fists and continued telling the old pagan legend while he circled him.

"You know, David that animals are excellent too. They are okay as a sacrifice, but their acceptability is limited. Did you know it? A young child is even better…"

A strike, one fist; hundred, thousands. "But nothing is nearly as proper as the right kind of adult." The punches were not very hard or violent, but they were many.

"You, are the right kind of adult, David. You!"

His filthy touch insulted the brunet.

Starsky felt raped and harassed, but Parry didn't care. He didn't pay attention to Starsky, and he started talking to Hutch, telling him the reason he was there while he kept on punching the brunet persistently.

"You know, Hutchinson," a pause, one blow, "according to my ancestors; humans were much more compelling offerings."

Another blow.

"In his case," and he took Starsky's face and squeezed him. "David's livelihood as a police officer means that he amply meets the outstanding criteria for a human that is to be sacrificed to appease the gods." Now the club. "Just like in the movies," another punch, "and since he's dying, since he won't survive the coming harsh winter he's just as good as anybody else… even better."

He smiled at Hutch, and Starsky cursed through clenched teeth so Parry, as a penalty, gave him a blow with a closed and tight fist in the middle of the stomach.

The last one, stronger than the other ones as an example.

The unexpected blow left Starsky without air, almost unconscious, knocking him down with his eyes closed while a trickle of blood ran from his mouth.

Hutch started shouting yet again in pain, cursing with his mouth wide open. "Hit me, not him! Do it to me, coward!" He felt very useless he couldn't prevent the slaying.

"You should stay quiet, Hutchinson; I can give him another strike if you keep on shouting. You are weak; you are a wimp, very different from him. See? He should have willingly not volunteered in this sacrifice. Perhaps he could have passed out or something; however, he's vigorous and stubborn, and he resists. He has the power of the king. I love he's so cooperative with my requirements."

He raised Starsky's face again and urged him, shouted him to open his eyes.

Starsky spat at him.

"Perfect! Mhh, scrumptious!" the Welsh licked his mouth and took him from the hair savagely, "You listen, David, you're my Shepherd, only you can bring me satisfaction. You restore my soul, and you will lead me in the paths of righteousness. You give me my life, and you take it away from me too, so to pleasing you, I'm gonna kill you. Do you believe in reincarnation? Because you're gonna die, and I'm gonna miss you."

Starsky's respirations were so startled, so irregular that Hutch thought he would cease to breathe anytime, so he said to him, trying to encourage his friend.

"Buddy, please. Trust me, everything will be okay."

But there wasn't any response, the man at Parry's mercy was so worn out and emotionally destroyed that he couldn't make a sound.

Parry laughed at the lack of communication, it was broken, but Hutch insisted and said again

"Parry, please, I'm asking you, I'm begging you stop this before it's too late. You have me! I'm here. Healthy and wholesome, you come and take me."

He turned around, facing Hutch and as a Devil, he said. "You listen, Hutchinson, my satisfaction is in him, nothing and nobody else, and nobody could change that. I have not any other satisfaction but him. Not even in things. So why should I want to go for anyone else when I have all the things I want here?" And he rubbed his hands over the entire length of Starsky's body. "All this…" In a lascivious, lewd and obscene way.

Parry stayed silent for some time, a sight of redemption covered him.

"David's my savior; he is not yours. He's mine. He'll be your Judge, only. Until this day, Hutchinson, I've been dead. I'm a sinner, but my soul is gonna be restored because he's going to give his life for this sheep, willingly. Don't you, David?"

He grabbed Starsky by his hair again. "You will give your life for me, willingly? And for His name's sake."

Starsky was staring at him; his glance lost in his immense suffering.

"You're crazy, Madoc, you're totally insane," Hutch said, heartbroken and hopeless.

Parry laughed an evil, roaring laugh and answered Hutch disrespectfully. "As Dali says, Hutchinson "There is only one difference between a madman and me. I am not mad." His evil laugh resounded viciously until he turned seriously quiet.

"No, you are right," Hutch replied, mortified, "You're not crazy, you're a coward. You're a miserable man. Instead of killing and torturing a sick man like him, you might do me. I'm stronger than he is and whole, and I'm here waiting for you. I am telling you! You didn't get me yet, so come and get me! Now, come. Come, Parry!" the blond-haired man sounded so menacing that Parry wondered if he could have had a great time with him too…

"Oh! No, no, no" The Welsh burst into derisive laughter. "You're not the proper one; besides, I've already overcome you. I have something better for you, something different. I prepared this table for you, my enemy." And he pointed to the rusty surface where he used to put Starsky on. "It is safe for me to sit down with you, you're harmless to me now. I took your power. He gives you the power, and I've got him. I can dine with my shepherd when the enemies are defeated as you are. You are not a threat. Not anymore. You lose." He signaled Starsky's shaking body, "You will sit there, and you will see. I prepared this table for you. So you wait until the end, to see who survives. Now you shut up, I have not finished here."

And he grabbed the whip.

It was that way until the end.

Until the moment in which he grabbed the horsewhip.

Seemed that it had been too much.

He whipped Starsky and lashed him, trying not to harm him too much, to no avail.

Though there had not been many knocks, there had been quite. The punishment was insane. And mad was Hutch's screams.

The whip's claws shredded Starsky's body; the little balls ripped him mercilessly tearing the skin that started to bleed.

Starsky was burning.

"_I wondered why I couldn't pass out, after all, I´ve been the king of fainting, lately, and why not now, why am I awake? And feeling everything, every little wallop, and every little mortification in a violent and intense way. I'm being tantalized, and I just wanna die"._ Starsky thought.

"How do you feel, David? Do you feel it, do you like it?"

Parry rubbed Starsky's skin with his callous hands. They felt like sandpaper. His long pinkie fingernail got stuck; it stopped by the brunet's wounds' traces, and he could not help but cry loud by the searing, piercing pain. "I'm gonna bathe you in hydrogen peroxide. I'm gonna rub it all over your body... I don't want you to get infected!"

He took a bottle with the liquid.

The brunet's body was burning, and when he poured it over him, the cop shivered while the cuts began to boil his frothy cauterization. Starsky was drenched, icy cold, but he felt that his guts would burst in the internal heat he experienced. He dreamt that the uncontrolled fever, as his veins, would melt, and all his liquids would spill in insides.

He couldn't control the sobs.

"Starsky, buddy. I'm here; I love you."

Starsky could hear Hutch's desperate shouts and his hurt voice, but he couldn't answer him, assure him that he was still there. "_I'm scared, Hutch." _He thought but couldn't voice.

Parry began once again touching his body, this time, for the first time, down to his trousers. Starsky felt how Parry opened the fly for the first time, and he shoved his jeans down below his ass, but he couldn't help it. "_Hutch, I'm scared,"_ he thought.

Starsky's bottom was glowing nearly white in the reflector's light in all his perfectly rounded gorgeous morphology.

"What a sweet, sexy ass. You are amazing, David!"

Parry was moonstruck.

"_Oh! You are disgusting!"_ Starsky thought.

"You leave him alone, don't touch him, Parry!" Hutch said frantically.

Parry laughed at the flaxen-haired man.

He realized that the brunet's partner was desperate, and he enjoyed that a lot. He could hear the man's desperate cries that came from the chair in which he was still tied to.

He perceived he might make him suffer, even more, so with a defiant look he dropped to his knees and worshiped Starsky's cock; his ass. Every time, he looked into Hutch's direction. Every time while his hands began touching the brunet's pubic hair that he purposely had left exposed just to see.

And then, in that instant, he totally forgot about Hutch.

To feeling those sensations were what he had always longed for. For Parry, it was such a colossal effort not to die on the spot. The Welsh had to force himself not to untie the dark-haired man and release him since he thought that David was utterly irresistible.

He looked up at his body, feeling small before his magnificence.

He was a pagan God.

Starsky had resistance, endurance; he was strong, brave and beautiful, and he was true.

His curls were missing. He had already bumps on his neck, on his nipples and bites and bruises around his torso but yet, he was still dazzling, all torn and tantalized and because of him. "You look good, David," Madoc touched him. "I like you with my marks on you. I wonder, why? Has it been ethical what you've done to me?" he kept touching. "To debauch my heart to such extent with lust?" He touched him again. "I'm longing for you, all of you… How sad! You'll leave me broken into pieces when you die."

That wouldn't be fair, and it was what enraged Parry, actually.

David was hanging up there, he looked like an enraptured angel, evilly defiant since he was so full of drugs.

He was a divine deity whose spell just wanted to break because it possessed him.

"_Why did he have done this to me?"_ Parry wondered.

David would die. If it wasn't because of him, because of cancer. And he would leave him alone, and then? Why would he live for?

He wouldn't consent.

He didn't want him to die; he wouldn't let him do it.

He was going to breathe life into his lungs, infuse energy to his sick cells.

The same power over death that he had. The most dominant source on earth.

He had to keep him alive and cauterize cancer that was rotting him inside with electricity. He would fill him in with power.

Starsky would shudder, and he would react.

And he was not going to die.

"_Oh! I don't want to lose you!"._ Parry thought.

For that reason, he grabbed the cattle prod.

Since Starsky was all drenched by the rain and the peroxide, the protection offered by his skin had been lowered to the minimum possible, and that same fact accelerated the whole process. Parry put the fluorescent electrical current over him, repeatedly. He seared his skin, leaving little scars on it at the contact point. Hutch could see how Starsky's muscles shrank over and over above the pain threshold in an endless wave.

Every time he applied the electrical current, Parry strolled through him, tilting his head like a dog did, curiously, after an explosive aftermath. He enjoyed watching how Starsky contorted into different positions hanging on a rope in front of the frame.

Hutch's screams were the percussion of Starsky's rhythmic spasms.

The monster inflicted the painful device many times for a brief, yet sustained period.

He had chosen the chest. The place where the diabolical malady dwelled, and he put the picana, just there, near his heart straight to his rotten lungs to cauterize them.

He wanted to finish his cancer.

However, he knew he might not do anything and while muttered indecipherable insults, blaming God for everything; he kept hurting the brunet mercilessly.

He seemed possessed.

Just like the noiseless Starsky, who also seemed possessed - though for different reasons; whose head bobbed back and forth in his uncontrolled and insane jerks.

Until the ultimate intent.

The last shock.

When the brunet already didn't move, when he had stopped because he had passed out.

Suddenly, they were surrounded by a bloodcurdling silence.

Parry approached the inert form

"David?"

Nothing.

He toured him with his eyes, encircled his body.

"David?"

Nothing.

"He passed out! Leave him alone!" Hutch cried out. "Starsk, buddy? Please! Oh, God! Please!" the blond-haired man felt heartbroken.

Nothing.

Parry tilted his head again, still looking at the body and smiled satisfied.

"You know Psalm 23, Hutchinson? It is from David. You know that Jews sing during Friday afternoon's services the Psalm and as part of the Sabbath night and that it is read at a cemetery funeral services too?" Parry slapped Starsky trying to make him react, "Come on, babe!" He started getting nervous.

Nothing.

"Listen, David, I'm gonna recite the Psalm for you," and he started doing it.

"The Lord is my shepherd; I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside quiet waters, and he refreshes my soul.

He guides me along the right paths for his name's sake.

Even though, I walk through the darkest valley. I will fear no evil for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.

You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever."

He tilted his head again, still nothing…

"You don't like it, David? My little Jewish Boy, uh? Today's Friday! I said it for you; that's just for you. You're my shepherd."

But still nothing.

Parry waited for a reaction that didn't come.

Hence he came up behind Starsky and started to untie his left arm, but the force of gravity made the whole body falls diagonally and down to his right foot.

"Oops!" the sound that the brunet had made was ominous as if his left leg bone might have been broken evidently. "Break a leg!" Parry laughed viciously and said ironically while Hutch's cries were heartrending.

Starsky was bent in half, almost gripping his right ankle with his left hand, with part of his ass in the air.

"Mmhh, this is captivating!"

Parry couldn't help the view, and he put a heavy hand on the small of his back and began to kiss him. He surrounded him with both hands to his pubis…

After a while, he did the same with his right arm and tried to grab him from behind, from his waist, but he didn't get to catch him on time.

And after he had released him from the rope, Starsky slid to the floor.

His intents in trying to pull him up by his trouser's belt were useless since the jeans were down as a result of what Parry just stayed with the belt in hand.

The brunet slammed hard against the floor, unconscious.

Parry had tried to stop him from hitting the floor to no avail.

"Oh! Damn Newton. What goes up must come down." The Welsh said terrifyingly; he couldn't help but laugh. Somehow, he found it… funny. "You see, Hutchinson? You know Newton's Law of Gravity? You've been in College, haven't you? Come on, repeat after me: "Every particle in the universe…"

Mad began to untie both feet while he kept reciting the statement,

"Attracts every other particle with a force along a line joining them."

He crouched beside his victim, looking at Starsky's face.

"Oh, David!" He shook his head; the sick man was totally out of it.

He raised him in his arms from the floor and carried the limp body to the makeshift table, where he laid him down on the rusty surface again while he finished the statement…

"The force is directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them."

"You fucking son of a bitch!" Hutch fell off his chair, by the sheer force that was the only thing that was moving him.

"Like I said, gravity force!" He shushed Hutch. "But Shuddup, Shh! you're gonna tear your wound!" and he started putting the shackles on Starsky's wrist and fixing the body that he had been yearning for years so well to the table again...

Parry's eyes trailed to the muscular legs. Up to the narrow hips that hinted under the twisted trousers which had slid off them. His eyes moved up to his muscular chest, mangled and dressed with his smooth, olive skin that was rising and falling, stubbornly.

There he was Starsky.

Starsky who laid over the cold surface. Sprawled, face up and tied.

One foot tangled in the rope and unconscious.

Hutch was lying on the flooring with his head down to the chair he was tied to and crushed too. He was able to listen. The blond could only hear.

"Oh! You are tough, man. You're strong and gentle and beautiful. Your goodness and your mercy will follow me, even when I divert from the path. You provide me certainties, David. With your sacrifice, those things will stay with me even when I don't deserve them. I'm not worthy of forgiveness or your goodness either, but that is what I get from you. You will dwell with me forever because I'll carry you in my heart, and you'll have eternal life in me and in those in whom you leave an indentation. You're going to redeem me, us. You'll forgive me because you are merciful. You are my shepherd, David."

The pain ripped through Hutch's body causing havoc to him. He was shattered, and he could only manage to recite the archaic verse while Starsky's dismembered silhouette leaned listlessly on the cold surface.

_Our Father,_

_who art in Heaven,_

_hallowed by Thy name,_

_Thy kingdom come,_

_Thy will be done_

_on earth as it is in Heaven._

_Give us this day our daily bread,_

_and forgive us our trespasses_

_as we forgive those, who trespass against us._

_And lead us not into temptation_

_but deliver us from evil._

_Amen._

**ACT 32 \- GOOD RIDDANCE BLUE BALLS-**

Peter Simmons and Roger Babcock were just arriving at the Precinct while Dobey was talking to Mike Todesco. The detective had gone to Saint-Quentin to see if Gunther had something to do with the disappearance of the detectives, but nothing so far, the old man didn't seem to be related at all.

"Captain Dobey!" Tim Collins, the rookie, opened the door. "I traced the envelope as you asked me. Nothing about it. Looks like it came straight from the post office in the ordinary mail. I have checked that with Dan and Chuck. They already confirmed it too."

"Nothing but ordinary about it? For crying out loud, that's the clue, dammit!" A nervous voice came aloud from the hallway, and they all raised their eyes to its sound. It was Simmons, who was entering the Office and carrying in his hands an evidence bag with the envelope inside it while brandishing it. "We burst down Hutch's door, and we find this, Captain."

The cop showed his Captain the manila envelope and tossed it up on his desk. The big man seemed to shrink in the sound and weight of it.

"What are you doing with this Simmons? Are you nuts? How did you mess with the crime scene like this? I won't handle this. We must call the Lab Technicians. I don't want to alter or substitute anything, accidentally." Dobey was right. So he raised his eyes to his detectives, they had committed many mistakes already.

"I'm sorry Captain. It's just that… this is bad, this is really bad. I've already talked with the Lab boys and told them, they were delayed so we thought that we better carry this here and see what happens" Babcock added perturbed.

"What's in it?", The Captain asked.

He knew he had a hunch, a horrible premonition about that envelope.

Babcock started talking slowly again. He was cautious.

"A white folder from Hope with all the forms related to Starsky's illness. There are a Schedule and legal procedures, DNR forms... you know."

"Oh, no," Huggy said, frantically. He looked aghast "I've already known this, Captain."

"Yeah... " The Captain looked bereaved.

"I've told you it has to be Bromley!" Hug stated.

"We didn't" he stuttered. "Why couldn't we find this man? It's my entire responsibility. My entire fault." Dobey said devastated, and Huggy started shaking.

The Captain was grief-stricken at the revelation. He had had a strange feeling about that envelope when he saw it two days before. He wondered what might have happened; if Hutch had opened it before he left that day. But it was too late at the time, and it was no use to think about it. It was who do they trust time, and they must work. And Fast.

"Go and call the lab team, find some fingerprints, something. Come on, hurry up. We couldn't find him yet. Maybe this Bromley turns out to be someone else."

"What do you mean, Cap?" Huggy asked concernedly.

"I don't know Huggy, but I'd like to know."

The Captain sat again at his desk; he scratched his head and forehead. All the clues returned nothing so far since the day before, and now the envelope.

The only thing that was for sure, the only _'advance'_ in the investigation was the fact that now Dobey knew, he had confirmed that Hutch knew everything about Starsky and that his Officers were together.

He had no doubt about it.

Suddenly Caroline opened the door.

She was visibly agitated; rumors had it that the pair of detectives had found something about Starsky.

Sam was still there with her.

She was hysterical, in a mixture state of sadness and worry. She was a bunch of nerves. The girl was devastated and frightened. Everybody tried to comfort Caroline, but it was no use, she was very troubled.

"What did they find, Captain Dobey, please? What?" She asked anxiously.

"Calm down, Caroline. Listen, listen, Simmons and Babcock went to Hutch's apartment, and they found an envelope with Starsky's medical protocols and the guidelines you gave him at Hope. So we assume that Hutch indeed is with him, that they were both kidnaped."

The doctor couldn't believe what she was hearing; she thought she would collapse anytime.

"Come again?" She frowned, "You mean that... you mean that Dave is with Hutch? Are you sure?" She closed her eyes, and suddenly an inexplicable feeling surrounded her. She didn't know why, but she felt some relief. The girl turned her eyes to the two detectives and asked them, "And what else did you find?"

"Well, we saw that Hutch's car was still parked at the same spot in front of his house in which it was yesterday. When he didn't answer, we busted down the door, and we found that envelope." Simmons glanced at the evidence bag, and when the girl turned her eyes to it, he started explaining. "It has a white folder in it, with prescriptions, a schedule, the DNR forms... you know," He filled his lungs and took a time to collect his feelings, "and a note. It was scattered on the floor when we entered. Seems like Hutch read it and rushed out, madly."

"A note?" Dobey asked.

"Yeah, Starsky's note. We recognized his handwriting. Being a southpaw... It's unmistakable."

"And what does that note say?" Dobey asked desperately.

"Nothing of importance. Something about that he was tired of waiting and that he had gone, something like that. But it was Starsky's note, I - We're sure." Babcock added.

"Wait a minute," Caroline said getting into the conversation. "I need to see that note," she said.

"We already called the Lab team and asked them to find out any fingerprints on it. It's evidence now, Caroline, and I won't jeopardize any legal proceedings..." Dobey started explaining, and she interrupted him, hurriedly.

"I wanna see that note. I need to see it, Captain," she begged with her voice and her eyes to the Captain "Please?"

"Try to calm down, Caroline, the Lab Team..."

"I don't care about the Lab Team or any legal procedure for handling and storing evidence, and I can't stay calm, Captain! Please, the note."

Dobey made a gesture; he realized the girl cornered him since she was determined to see it.

"Okay," The Captain took a deep breath "Have you got evidence handling gloves?" he asked Simmons, and the man nodded. "Put them on!"

Simmons opened the plastic bag.

He carefully searched into the contents of the envelope and found it.

Caroline stuck her eyes to it while Dobey read it aloud.

"_I got tired of waiting, and I went._

_Starsky." _

"That's what it says."

"Ian," the woman voiced.

"Who?" Dobey asked at the murmur…

"That's my note, Captain," She said on the verge of breaking. "Ian's got him."

"Who's this Ian? What are you talking? Which note?"

Caroline was a strong woman, and she was also intelligent. She could have broken in tears. Moreover, she could have started crying in pain since she knew that her boyfriend was in danger, but then she decided to calm down and told them what had happened.

And she tried to help.

"Dave met a man, a cab driver who happened to be very solicitous about him. He met him at the end of July when this man picked him up from Memorial one day. I recognize that note." She sighed, lost in the memory and she inflated her lungs. "Dave told me the story around it, this… Ian encouraged him to write it to me. It was a silly joke. I recognize it, it's my note. I recognize it because of the text and because of its letterhead…"

They saw that the sheet belonged to the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas and the Detectives frowned. She explained.

"Those memo books are at Sam's beach house," she kept talking, "I tried to save the note as a memento, you know… those silly things women do, his first letter to me…" she smiled sadly, "but I couldn't find it. I was very pissed off that I couldn't find it!"

She broke, and Dobey and the others tried to console her. "Oh, God, Dave!" she finished.

"Caroline, girl, calm down and tell me who are you talking about? What's his name? Who is this man?" Dobey asked immediately.

"Ian something, I don't know his surname. He works for a Cab Company. Oh! I never saw his car, and I don't know which Cab Co is. I - I only met him once, I don't know - I… " She stuttered, she was desperate.

"Try to calm down and remember Caroline. Easy, easy, and think about it. I'm sure that Starsky, that Dave has told you... what Cab does this man drive?"

"I don't know, I don't know!" She shouted. "I never saw it. He picked Dave up only once! I - I don't know who this man is. Never saw the car either. Only Dave talked to me about him and told me he was very friendly and…" she made an effort trying to remember and said, "Yes! Maybe at Memorial, I mean Peggy, Murray's assistant, maybe she knows. Ian told Dave that Peggy had made the reservation at the Cab Company that day."

"Babcock, Simmons, now! Go to Memorial. See to this Peggy, find her and ask her."

The Captain said straight to his men. They left immediately.

The big man crouched beside the scared girl. He continued asking.

Maybe Caroline could have more answers than questions this time.

"Okay, lady. Come on, tell us again what has happened, what have you seen when you arrived home, Caroline? Something out of place?"

"Like I said, Captain Dobey… I went to check one patient's state to Memorial; we were supposed to go to the movies. I wanted to see Travolta Stayin' Alive at Mann's. I - I was meant to be back at 6 PM." She broke and started sobbing.

"Calm down, Caroline, please" Dobey comforted her.

"It's okay, It's okay," she composed herself and continued. "But when I came back home, he was nowhere. The way I see it now, the way it looked to me, I feel that he had left unexpectedly. I knew that something had happened to him, somebody had called him I mean… or maybe someone had snatched him. Yeah, that's more like it. The table was set when I arrived, his meal half-finished, the radio turned on, and the French window that leads to the terrace was wide open… His jacket was hanging on the chair too..."

"And what did you do next?" Dobey asked trying to find out if there was some loose end.

"Well, I started searching for him. I felt like crazy. I went to the beach and the Pier since it was Thursday. I thought that maybe he could have gone to the Twilight Dance Series," Dobey grimaced, so she explained him, "This new concerts that have been taken place after the "Save the Pier Week" every Thursday? To raise funds to rebuild the pier, after the El Niño storm in March, remember? That … well, he liked to go there sometimes," she got lost in her loving reverie, "I even went to Farmer's Market at Brentwood, but nothing, he wasn't anywhere."

While Caroline was on the verge of breaking down again, Dobey started to barking orders to everybody.

He called Meredith's extension, put her in charge of a Lab Team and sent them to Hutch's place to try to find something else. "And report me anything you found. You search throughout the house if necessary. See if you find any other note, something.

Minnie!"

The rotund man shouted exasperated into the other telephone to the petite woman, "I made this request two hours ago, what's R & I for? You couldn't find a bottle of beer in a brewery? For Christ's sake, we have to find that Bromley. Give me a list of Cab Companies, call the City Hall. See to all the men named Ian who got a driver's license. We need to know before it's too late. We have to rule out any other possibility at this point. Parry's gonna kill again."

The poor Captain had too many leads to attend to.

It was madness.

At the mention of Parry's name, Caroline slumped in the chair at Dobey's Office.

The air had been missed, or the atmosphere was becoming more unbearable and more suffocating for the girl. She didn't know, but she could tell that something was happening or at least that it seemed that way to her. She knew who Madoc Parry was; Dave had told her. By the time, she was devastated, lacked air, and she felt utterly sick. She realized that she was going to faint anytime, so she asked Sam to give her a glass of water.

"What's happening Caroline, you ok?"

She was sweating all over, the color on her face had been gone, and the doctor realized.

"I feel sick, Sam, I'm dizzy," she said utterly distraught.

"Hey, wait, honey, you maybe have low pressure. Calm down and let's be quiet. Put your legs up here. You'll see everything's gonna be okay."

He gestured Dobey to get out of his office; she needed a little intimacy, and there were too many people around.

"We'll find him anytime, you'll see. We'll find Starsky, safe and sound..."

"Is not just that, it's..." She started crying and shook her head, "it's that I don't really believe that either, Sam. I'm afraid that something terribly bad has happened to him; I'm scared and besides..."

"Besides what, Caroline? What?"

"Nothing, it's nothing." She was very distressed and began to mourn inconsolably.

"Everything will be fine. He's with Hutch, trust me; Hutch's gonna take care of him!" Sam said lovingly.

"How can you be so sure about that?" She asked the psychiatrist.

"That's what they do best. Take care of each other." He raised her face and looked straight into her dark blue eyes. "Everything's gonna be fine, Caroline."

"Nothing's gonna be fine in my life ever again, Sam and besides..." she shut up, "I don't know how you can be so sure."

"Come here," Sam said, and he hugged her.

Neither he could be sure.

********************S&H********************

It was dark; it was 3 AM; enough time until the other day would break.

Parry had done nothing but watching him during the previous two hours. More than watching him, he had been listening to him and his rattling.

Starsky was getting worse.

It had started again, but then he thought, the body temperature always increases after sunset and in the wee hours, so everybody worsens, not just David.

He had dimmed the lights; he had turned off the reflector.

They were all tired.

That's why he only was listening to him and his difficulty breathing.

Parry was sitting on the floor, crouched in a small puddle, by Hutchinson's side. He was beyond tiredness, and he needed a little rest.

Out there, it was still raining, pouring with rain.

Though he had his sweater on, he was cold and wondered how David would feel.

His prisoner was shirtless on the frozen surface, although he did not shiver, so Madoc thought that David was all right.

The poor brunet seemed to be tired too, and he needed to rest…

So it would be better not to disturb him either.

Let him rest.

He could always wait for him, so that was what he was doing, resting his weary mind and body and waiting for David. He would wait until 5 A.M when he would wake him up and would give him another dose of the drugs.

Parry marveled at the exceptional strength of this man.

He was incredible. After all that he had been through, one would have thought that it would be almost impossible for him to live, except that he was no ordinary man.

He smirked; he had chosen his prey so well this time.

Everything swelled.

Suddenly he stood up.

He rummaged through a few packs in a basket, which was on the third step of the old wooden stairway. He remembered he needed his nourishment if he wanted to succeed

He asked Hutch from afar, "You want something to eat?"

Hutch didn't say anything, so the Welsh started walking back next to him again, regaining his spot on the floor beside the blond who was again sitting on his chair.

"You know? I haven't eaten since Thursday noon. That's more than 40 hours. Come on Hutchinson," he knocked the cop's leg with the food wrapped in a paper bag, "Neither did you! Come on, take it! It has too much Worcestershire Sauce but is about as good a rarebit as anyone can imagine could be, come on!" Parry offered the toast again, "We can eat rice pudding for dessert, later."

Hutch didn't even bother to answer, but Parry didn't care, he was starving so he ate greedily.

He had almost forgotten being human.

"You know, when I was 22, I did a guy who was exceptionally beautiful, almost like David is. I had been watching him for months." He chewed and swallowed uncouthly, "We were mates at UCLA, but he hadn't even noticed my existence. One day we crossed our paths, by chance..." Parry smiled softly at the memory. "He was kind, tender, compassionate and utterly flawless even with me who didn't deserve him... so I had to do it." He shook his head and winced. "I did him. I stabbed him in the chest, just one deep cut." He chewed again and swallowed grossly. Hutch looked at him; he was started feeling nauseous, and Parry continued. "It's the only thing I was ever good at." Parry ended and pulled the tab and drank the beer.

Since Mad didn't get any reaction from Hutchinson, he smiled, and he continued saying.

"So Hutchinson, you trust me. I know everything about death, and I've already learned that when a man dies someone or something has to be blamed. I don't know, but you can blame the skies or a trick of fate, you can blame the enemy or God, or in your case, you can blame cancer... But one thing is true, you always need someone or something to blame. That little piece of revenge I mean, don't you feel like having that need when it comes to the death of someone you love?"

Hutch looked at him fiercely; he felt he could rip this man's heart in one single motion and with his bare hands.

He remembered Gunther.

The way he felt right after the shooting when he faced the man that had ordered the hit; however, nothing compared to the way he was feeling at the time. It was beyond bearing for Hutch having to face this insanity. He couldn't utter a word.

"Oh man, as a Detective you are. Don't tell me that you don't like to have the case closed?"

Hutch looked at him in utter disgust and said, "You are too chatty today, Parry."

Madoc laughed at Hutch's irony.

"You should begin to be familiar with the idea, man. And be grateful that I'm gonna give that to you. You're such a lucky guy, Hutchinson. I'll give you that satisfaction you don't have to worry. This time, you'll have your murderer because I'm gonna kill your partner, and you're gonna blame me forever." Parry knew perfectly well, precisely, what had, would and was meant to happen. And Hutch realized that the time was getting nearer, as well. "You're gonna blame me all your rotten life."

And then, Parry stood.

He rushed to the table and took Starsky's pulse, and then he curled his arms around him. "Aw, how careless I've been, you're frozen!" he said to his passive victim.

He regretted and pressed his hands to his stomach, then leaned his face over him.

Hutch stopped breathing altogether, doubled in panic. "Not again, please, please…" He said in a low voice, almost a groan of pain.

It would be a long sunrise.

Parry raised his head from Starsky's chest and turned his head with glorified anticipation to his partner and smiled provocatively. It seemed as if he had heard him. He mouthed at the soft skin around Starsky's belly button, pulling it into his lips, with his tongue entangled in the happy line, defiantly.

A quick move to press his face into the softness of his lax stomach.

He adored his belly.

He was drooling, like an insatiable and rabid animal.

Parry felt his saliva dripped from the side of his neck and came over his bottom lip and down his chin.

He glanced at his watch; it was about time.

As he had planned, he unfolded several silvered folding screens and put them next to the table where David was. He switched on the four reflectors and directed them toward him, to Starsky's emaciated and still form.

Parry wanted to warm him by reflecting his brilliance that now it was blinding. Starsky glowed like quicksilver, galvanized and slowly melting because of the heat.

"David, you wake up lover. You have to take your pills. Come on!"

"I can't… Please. I'm not feeling good. I feel sick. Please. I feel hot, I'm so hot," the brunet sounded delirious.

"Yeah, I know, that's why you have to take your medicines. Come on, let's do it!" He offered him the pills, "Hey, hey! Are you thirsty? Take them easy, okay? Hey!" He removed the glass of water from his mouth, "That's too fast, not that fast! It can make you ill. You'll feel better in 20 minutes."

"I'm very hot," Starsky slurred and slumped his head to the board under him.

"The hell I know, David, the Hell I know."

The cop's skin was boiling, he was hot indeed though Parry was talking about another kind of hotness.

Starsky felt like he was being cut with a piece of glass when being pressed up against the cold metal surface. The temperature difference was shocking and paralyzing. He felt his heart would stop anytime because of the shock.

Parry took his temperature. He was 104F, "_that is too much,"_ the wicked man thought, pretty dangerous indeed, and he also noticed of the violent and constant shivering that had started to conquer his prey.

"Mh, you are intoxicating, David!" He adored him. He liked to see him trembling, "I love when you are trembling, David."

He liked to see him shivering and weak. It made him feel strong, so he decided that he had to cool him down only to see him trembling.

For that purpose, he had made the bulging-eyed man buy the popsicles.

Parry loved to have fun and this man provided. He made him feel very creative.

On the floor, there were two big coolers full of cylindrical pellets of dry ice to keep the popsicles within, so he emptied their contents over Starsky's hot body.

He decorated him with the colorful popsicles as if he was a Roman banquet in shades of aquamarine, purple, indigo, green and ultramarine blue. The crossed lights from the reflectors seemed like transform the frosty goodies into incandescent gems, those radiant gems that he was going to lick. From the strawberry of his mouth to the bubblegum of his nipples, all of Starsky was ready for the festive consumption; for Parry, he was a wild and tasty and psychedelic electrical experience.

The popsicles were all over him.

He looked like a kaleidoscope, in pieces of glass cut, surrounded by garlands of frosty sweet.

"God, you are bright and sweet. You shine, David!"

Starsky felt his sticky, sweaty and soft skin that was being pressed against his back. His back resting on the surface; the sugary rivers were falling over the sides of his body...

Parry felt greedy.

The colors, the taste, it all started making Mad's pleasures grow. His desire increased and his enthusiasm intensified when the sweet sticks jammed by contact tore Starsky's skin, just a little, enough to make him tremble in pain. He pulled them, but the pellets stuck to the skin, the skin on the surface, the skin that was going to get frostbite. The Welsh was going crazy. The dry-ice fog effects were ghostly.

"I want you! Spread your legs wide for me, my sweet dream. Your body is mine tonight." he ordered harshly to the passive man.

Starsky seemed, so far, like a neon sign that was inviting him, he thought.

The poor man drenched in sweat shone like the sun after the rain while the popsicles looked like little rainbows.

Parry felt as if he was waiting for him, for him to go and take him.

However, it wouldn't be for now, not yet; he would fulfill his expectations, later and he would enter this man's universe.

Parry couldn't help but feel sad about it.

He knew that although he would do his best, he would never have him… he had never been able to do it before, and David wouldn't be an exception. Mad knew he would never get enough of him, never get enough of the solar composition, which was the beginning of it all. Regardless, he promised he would try, this time... and he would suck him, rub him, and kiss him. His mouth would be all over him. He would make him disappear, vanish in a big bang, rip his heart in two to punish him.

He wanted David, wide open.

He wanted to survive in this argon and carbon dioxide-induced fantasy in which he was in, just to retain him and keep a piece of this man for the ever after.

In David, he could summarize the origin of the universe; now David was being burnt in his energy, and he was being consumed. He was the epitome of creation; all his chemistry irradiated off from his solar plexus.

And he was sweet and luminous. He shone like million lights, and now he was vanishing into the sky, bursting like a shooting star; and like that, he was dying.

And the most beautiful thing about everything is that he was the only one to blame.

"Oh man, I'm going to explode. I can't take it anymore. I'm going to untie you! I feel like an animal in heat."

Starsky didn't react but whimpered pathetically. Parry scared when he began to untie him and straightened him up. He was so weak that he slid away from his tormentor's hands.

"What are you doing, David? Lie back and stay put! I'm gonna hurt you until you can't breathe; you are just perfect."

He turned him around. Starsky was facing down while Parry took the scalpel, his eyes opened, and his glance lost.

"What are you gonna do sick bastard? What do you need that for?" Hutch's piercing cries filled the room when he saw Parry taking the hateful instrument.

"I need to take off the pieces of dry-ice of his skin. They remain glued!" Parry shouted desperately. "So you shut up and don't bother me anymore!"

Hutch could hear Starsky's moans and groans. It was a nightmare.

Parry sighed.

Every time he hurt him, Hutch whispered obscenities and cursed.

"You shut up, Hutchinson."

"You son of a bitch! Leave him alone!" the blond-haired man replied.

"You shouldn't tempt me! You see what you've got? I wrote my love all over him.

Hutch thought he would burst. His pain was unbearable.

Parry was killing Starsky, slowly.

He was stripping his skin off him. In small, little parts.

Now he really was.

The man could sound commanding and harsh, submissive and uncertain, and everything in between.

Suddenly, he rolled Starsky over onto his back again, desiring to touch one last time his belly and his chest. He tied his hands above his head, only his hands this time, to cut off his skin. Starsky was crying while Parry pierced him in many small cuts and punctures only to get out the pellets off of his skin.

"Oh, David! I've carved all your torso with my love… You're being threatened by my hurt."

"You're gonna kill him, bastard," Hutch said, desperately.

"The cuts are small Hutchinson. Don't you see? You don't have to worry; besides, to prevent infection, I will boil those cuts, burning his skin. You take it easy, it won't be now. Not yet! I'm gonna kill him, but later!" and he laughed, viciously.

"Don't do that! Please! Please Parry, please. Starsky!" the blonde-haired man yelled to no avail.

Starsky didn't respond; he wasn't aware of anything.

Parry was in the ecstasy of his pleasure. He was nearly beyond speech at the sensations that were coursing through his body.

Starsky was completely surrendered, without will or direction. Adrift. Neither cancer nor anything else had had this power over him, and Parry realized. "_Neither anything nor anybody is going to steal you from me,"_ he thought.

Nothing.

Until the moment when suddenly, Starsky's pain was so immense, that Parry realized that the man wasn't there with him anymore.

The tormentor felt that he had lost his prisoner.

Starsky's last cry was genuinely harrowing, and it seemed to have snatched all the air that was left in the dark-haired man's lungs. David stopped breathing at all, and Madoc felt it.

"Damn you!"

Parry shook him.

"Oh Man!" the Welsh regretted, "It's been too long, too long! I've been waiting for so long; you are not gonna leave me now! I need to be inside you, and I fucking need you now."

Mad shouted at the quiet man.

"What have you done with him? Starsky! Starsky!" Hutch couldn't help but cry in pain.

Parry needed him, his David, not the poor substitute he had become and that he had left in his place.

Madoc got scared.

He untied his hands and grabbed Starsky's legs thrusting him brutally towards the floor. He shoved himself into his throat and made the man gag; he savagely bit the tip of his tongue as he choked, and he gave his life back.

To breathe for David and breathe for him, and the brunet came back.

********************S&H********************

"Oh yeah, I remember. The cab driver, yeah. He was a kind man. What about him and what happened to Mr. Starsky?"

Simmons and Babcock had gone to look for Murray's assistant's address, Peggy, at Memorial. They had called her in the dawn. She lived on the other side of the City, so it took them more than one hour to get to her place. The woman had been very solicitous, and she had received them kindly, despite the time.

"Mr. Starsky was kidnaped, and we think that that cab driver is involved, Mrs. Partdrige" Babcock explained to her.

"Oh no! Mr. Starsky! Such a kind man. He is so cute, educated, and charming. I hope that everything is all right, it's bad enough that he's so sick to add this… I remember the first time he came to Memorial, he's such a legend there, a kind of celebrity you know, and I felt so honored to have known him, he is… you know, I..."

Simmons interrupted her.

Sometimes the police officers felt the need to choke the witnesses and squeeze the information out of them as soon as possible, but they had to be kind enough not to scare people.

That was one of those times.

The cops were tired sick of being kind to the kitsch woman with her tacky floral robe, but they had to.

"Lady, you are very kind for letting us in at this time in the dawn and for telling us those entertaining stories about our friend. But now, we need you to be helpful and think about this, our question only, remember? Could you please tell us which the cab company was? Can you remember?"

"Oh that, uh... yes! Ehhh... I think it was... It was… Oh yes! the Yellow Cab Company. That's it!"

"You mean the one that's at Rosecrans Ave? Are you sure?" Simmons said hurriedly.

"Of course, I am! I could never forget that man's shirt, it looked like a yolk! It was that Company, I'm sure."

The two detectives stood up and greeted the woman good-bye.

"Thank you, Mrs. Partridge. You've been very useful."

"I hope so, and I hope that that lovely man, Mr. Starsky, is alright."

They rushed to the Yellow Cab Co's Parking Lot, and they got Ian's address.

********************S&H********************

The Cab Company's manager had told them that Ian Fletcher - that was the driver's name had worked there but that he had been gone since almost one month ago, unexpectedly. The Police officers had asked the indolent man whether he had notified the authorities of Ian's disappearance, and he only shrugged.

"Men, I don't know. He has just disappeared what else I can say? I saved the compensation... I was gonna fire him anyway."

So they left the Parking Lot straight to the Precinct, to get a warrant to investigate Ian's Place.

At least, they felt that they had one clue this time.

********************S&H********************

Simmons and Babcock entered Metro.

They were in such a hurry; they went straight to the Homicide Division to tell Dobey and ask for the warrant.

"Ian Fletcher?" Dobey asked while he was in the Squadron, checking with Minnie her last findings.

The name sounded strange to the Captain and everyone else's ears.

Babcock and Simmons nodded. They all shared their glances.

This had been unexpected; they had never heard about that man.

That person didn't exist in the Police Universe.

Ian Fletcher was no one.

Minnie had confirmed it.

There weren't any Police records about him.

The only thing they had, it was this man's street address.

7000 Los Tilos, Road.

"Okay. You go there. That's three streets above from Starsky's place. Get that warrant and go! Move! Move!" Dobey shouted.

Suddenly they heard a bump in Dobey's office and the Captain, his detectives and Minnie entered the room.

********************S&H********************

"Caroline, hey girl."

Sam looked into Dobey's direction and grimaced.

It was Saturday, 11 AM, and they didn't know anything yet.

The girl seemed that she couldn't take it anymore.

"She passed out, Captain." Sam's voice came troubled.

Caroline had fainted.

"Minnie, call Cheryl, now!" Dobey said hurriedly

"Okay," the bespectacled woman said, and she left the Office.

Huggy was hunched aside the girl too, and he was caressing her face.

"Poor girl, so much stress. This isn't anything but unfair," he added.

"Yeah," Dobey sighed "and looks like we're running in circles. Who the hell is this Ian Fletcher? I mean. I never heard about him."

The Captain shook his head and sighed, "Huggy, you stand back and give her some air. Babcock, Simmons" he motioned to his detectives "Let's go to Fletcher's place!"

He raised his brown eyes to the sky; he hated this, but he ought to be in charge despite his feelings. "_Oh, Lord, please, give us something!"_ he silently begged.

And the detectives left the Office.

"Caroline? You ok? Are you feeling better?" Sam asked her, hurriedly.

She was starting to regain consciousness, slowly.

"Oh yeah! I'm sorry. I suddenly blacked out. I guess I fainted?" she asked, confused.

"Yeah, you sure did, but you seem to be okay now. How do you feel?" the psychiatrist asked.

"Lightheaded, nauseated. I feel sick, my stomach's upset."

"You should calm down. We're gonna find Starsky; you'll see… and everything will be okay."

Suddenly Cheryl entered Dobey's office; she had a handbag full of drugs and syringes and a stethoscope.

"Hi, my name's Cheryl. You are going to be just fine, doctor. Trust me" she said reassuringly, "May I check you?"

"We better get outta here, Huggy, Captain, don't we?" Sam said matter of factly.

"Of course. We'll be in the Squad room." And they all left the Captain's office.

While Cheryl started assessing her condition, Caroline burst into tears inconsolably.

"Calm down Miss, what happened? You are Starsky's Lady, aren't you? C'mon you'll see that everything's gonna be alright, Starsky's going to be alright" Cheryl tried to comfort her.

"You know him?" Caroline asked.

"Of course I do!" Cheryl smiled lovingly; she was very fond of Starsky, especially after everything that had happened and the man never bore any grudge against her. "You'll see, he's one of the toughest men I've ever met," Cheryl said and winked at her. "We've been together in the Precinct since… well," She rolled her eyes, "It's a long story, but he'll be fine you'll see, he'll be okay."

"You don't know, do you?" Caroline asked the doctor while she was taking her blood pressure.

"Well, I didn't know that he was dating, no… but then, why should I have known?"

"No, I didn't mean that. I mean, you don't know that he is sick", Caroline said.

"Oh no, I don't. Really?" She shook her head, "That shooting has so many sequelae..."

"No, it is not the shooting."

"Oh, so what's going on?"

"He has cancer, and he's dying."

Cheryl was shocked by the news; she frowned in anguish.

Like almost everybody else in the Precinct, she didn't know that Starsky was sick; she only knew that he was away, but nothing more.

"Starsky? You mean, Dave? Oh, My God, it can't be! Some … oh no!" Cheryl was overwhelmed by the news. She didn't know; they never said, and she never asked "but... Cancer?"

"That's why I'm scared that something terrible might have happened to him. I know I'm going to lose him, but also know that I still have some time with him. Oh, I love him, Doctor!" Caroline broke again; she was on the verge of passing one more time, and Cheryl didn't know what else to say.

"Calm down, calm down, please? I, I understand… but you relax Caroline, he'll be okay, and I'm gonna help you. I'm gonna take a blood sample; see if you are anemic or something, ok?"

"Doctor, I - I should tell you something else," she made a pause "I missed my period." Caroline sighed, overwhelmed by the circumstances.

"Okay, you don't worry. I can make an Accu-Test, fine? Better you told me; I was just planning to give you something strong to feel better: now I know that it won't be wise, see?" Cheryl said.

"I don't wanna be sedated," Caroline said, determined.

"Ok."

********************S&H********************

Hutch felt shivers up and down his spine when he heard the gulp of air and Starsky's voice that came back again, weakly after the unreason.

His buddy was back.

"Please, please, God. Help me. Does somebody help me? I need... I'm scared; I feel - feel sick, very sick, awful...," the brunet whispered, barely audible.

"Leave him alone, please, please, please. Don't you hear him?" Hutch started sobbing. "Mercy! You have mercy, please! Leave him alone. You're gonna kill him. I'm here buddy; I love you."

"Okay!" Parry said, and stood enraged and left Starsky's side. "Enough. Three times' enough."

Hutch sensed that something bad was about to happen. He remained silent gazing the Welsh' extreme movements. The end was near, and the outcome was near too, the moment of goodbye.

"No! What are you going to do? Parry. Calm down. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Parry. Starsky! Starsky, please buddy, answer me! Starskyyy!"

After a few minutes, Parry came back menacing and said, "Hutchinson, you shouldn't have talked again. You shouldn't! I'm gonna sterilize the small cuts that he has in the abdomen. He's gonna hurt so bad, that you are gonna feel very guilty! You are going to regret it forever."

And he showed the blond-haired man the jar with the hot water.

Parry tilted his head looked at Hutch one last time and said: "I'm gonna dump the water out over his soft belly, now."

And so he did.

Starsky whined.

He cried long, loud, and pathetically this time.

When Parry dropped the contents of the jar onto his soft stomach and his tender skin, he did cry.

That only, Starsky's shouts and spasms and his convulsions made Parry get a hard-on, so he jerked until Starsky's burnt and crimson stomach was dripping with Parry's cum.

Starsky writhed on the floor, convulsing with pain like a fish out of the water.

One, two, three aftershocks until the final spasm.

The wild look of Parry's crazed face was the last thing that Starsky had seen, so far, "_disgusting for a goodbye," _the brunet thought sarcastically.

Parry had never achieved it before...

He had masturbated many times, every day since that fateful day but never like this. He had never achieved it before, he had never shot before, and he had never experienced such beautiful and invigorating feeling of release.

As if an electric shock had stunned him, his body still oozed energy.

He was full of life, trembling and afraid, fearful of having squeezed from Starsky every last vestige of his life since the cop was lying inert on the floor in an odd position and vulnerable.

So still, the man didn't move anymore.

"David, it's been fantastic. You're amazing."

Parry crumbled to the ground beside his prisoner and whispered to him. However, he was drowsy enough to reckon that David was gone and became unconscious. The Welsh was so intoxicated, confused and worn out by the frantic shock that he hadn't perceived it.

"You sick bastard, he's out of it, help him!" Hutch said frantically.

Barely listening to the blonde-haired man, Parry had to give an order to his brain to move. He was exhausted and afraid, but he had to check if the great doer was still alive.

So he crawled to the adjacent table and then got back to the mangled body that was lying still on the floor. Noticing how highly unresponsive the man was, he prepared a syringe of speedball and he injected Starsky with a dose.

He knew that It would take only a few minutes to start the effects.

Though Parry felt relief that David was still among the living, he had to make sure that he would be that way for some more time.

They had over them 13 more hours ahead, and it was only 11 AM.

"Parry! You sucker. You go and check on him. What did you shot him with? He's very still!" Hutch said frantically.

"Shut up, Hutchinson, he's only tired," Madoc said like an automat; and prevented the horrified man from keep talking.

The Welsh eased off. He was also tired and laid himself alongside Starsky.

After all, he thought, he needed a little time to organize and decorate everything.

He needed the flowers, the template to perform the final act, and until the drugs would make the desired effect, he needed to rest.

With that thought and Hutch's voice ringing loud in the back of his mind, he relaxed.

He put his hand on Starsky's throbbing chest to make sure it was moving, keeping it from stopping. The Welsh rested his hand there, to catch the rebellious heartbeats just in case they wanted to escape. Parry stayed, motionless, drunk in ecstasy and enjoying the sensation.

He could not do much more at the moment.

He felt weary.

To feeling Starsky breathe, it was enough to enjoy.

"You sick pervert, you hurt him, leave him be!" Hutch was loosening it.

"Amen to that Hutchinson. I let him be!" and then he pulled a face and said, "I'm tired, I wanna sleep. Good Riddance Blue Balls," he said satisfied, with a grin on his face.

And Parry fell asleep.

**ACT 33 \- THE BODY DYING -**

He felt very sick, cold, and also sad.

The blood was still pulsing in his head, but he felt his heart was eerily cold. His heart was icy.

His chest hurt. He was in such pain he couldn't take it anymore.

He started convulsing.

"Help me. Please. Help."

He didn't know if he had said it aloud or if someone had heard him.

_"Did I?"_ He thought.

Nobody helped him. He was alone.

He spasmed, he couldn't control or move voluntarily; he couldn't breathe, and the situation kept happening. It was getting worse. He was getting worse and worse.

A sour taste filled his mouth. Also his nostrils. He felt like vomiting, but not liquid or bile. It was foam.

_"Oh, Lord! It hurts. I drown. Oh God, I'm dying!"_ Starsky feared.

He knew that something else was up.

And that it was going to happen very soon.

It wasn't just the lack of air this time; it was something different. His heart.

The last two pumpings, another seizure.

"Hutch?" he said, feebly.

He knew it would happen; it hurt him so much. His heart was going to stop beating. He was going to stop.

"Hutch?"

He stopped.

End.

It was 11.15 AM on Saturday.

********************S&H********************

_"Did you say my name, buddy?"_ Hutch thought that Starsky had said his name, but he wasn't sure. He was exhausted. He could see him; the monster was still sleeping beside his friend. Parry, was still all over him. He had his claw over Starsky, but he was sure that his partner had said his name.

_"Partner, did you call me? Starsk? Did you say my name?"_ Hutch thought again.

He thought he should have gone insane. He had heard his awkward rattling, and he had seen his throbbing body until a few minutes ago, and now? Now he wasn't moving, and he couldn't hear him at all!

"Oh, My God!"

Starsky's body wasn't throbbing. He wasn't.

Neither his chest was pulsing.

The body and chest had stopped moving.

Hutch started shouting.

"Buddy, Starsky! When? Oh, noo! Starsk? I've been here all the time watching, when? When did it happen? Oh, no!"

Starsky didn't move at all, he didn't flinch, neither he got scared. Nothing.

"You, motherfucker! Help him, help him! He's not breathing! Lemme help him, untie me now, please! Wake up! You, son of a bitch, you go and help him. He's not breathing, he isn't moving!" Hutch was desperate, he fell and started crawling with the chair toward Starsky's side. He hurt his knees, and he ripped his trousers with the cold and broken tiling, the blood started staining all over his pants, but Parry didn't react, didn't wake up.

Hutch felt like a maniac. He thought that he could go insane.

"Wake up! If you don't, it'll be too late, son of a bitch! Don't you see, motherfucker!? Help him! Wake up!"

Nothing so far.

"Parry, don't you hear me? Starsky's dead!"

Those words woke him.

The Welsh startled because of the verbal assault and Hutch's piercing cries.

He huddled against the wall, with his eyes wide open in terror.

Madoc looked like a beast in a Zoo's cave, cornered.

He reacted as if he had been fired by an electric shock, surprised.

Hutch could see that he couldn't easily catch his breath.

He was dazed and confused.

So he urged him to do something, to move, to react!

"Look at him, he's not breathing. Lemme go, and I'll help him, please, he's not breathing. You hear? He's not breathing! Starsky! Breathe, breathe!"

Parry leaned against the wall under the window of the basement horrified.

Petrified.

He looked like he was grieving as if he were in a kind of mourning. The man was lethargic, he moved in a clumsy, slowly way and Hutch could tell that he realized that Madoc Parry was frightened for the first time in the two days nightmare.

The Welsh had his arms folded across his stomach, and he clutched at them tightly, as they refused to move; he was scared and trembling.

He looked like a little kid, the fear that tied his gut in knots was creeping up slowly, and Hutch could see it. Hutch could feel it. It was paralyzing him, tickling him, numbing him to its way up to his neck.

Parry felt cold, horrified, had he lost him?

Had he gone too far? How long had it been?

Three minutes since he had ceased to throb; since it had all ended or two or ten? Or how many?

He had fallen asleep. _"Damn me!"_ he thought.

There wasn't much time to lose.

He raised his eyes to Hutchinson; he was looking at him from the other side of the room. He had lost his David. "If it were possible, Parry thought, Hutchinson would kill me with his bare hands."

He could feel it too.

He couldn't react.

The image of Starsky sprawled out on the floor, haunted him.

The foam and his blood spilled out from his mouth and from all over his body through the open little flesh wounds that were seeping through the cold cement in its constant leaking.

The image flashed in his eyes again.

The thunders outside, illuminated the poor carcass in a dynamic but chilly way, electrically, so it looked like the man was trembling.

_"But no! There weren't any more tremors; it was just the storm."_

"Come on Parry! Do something before it's too late, we're gonna lose him! You react, son of a bitch! Help him, do something, he's dying!" Hutch shouted like a madman and Parry raised his eyes to the blond detective, challenging him.

"I will not lose him now!" the Welsh cried, menacing. And then Hutch saw him. He rushed to Starsky's side. Parry raised him off the floor and carried him to the oxidized surface. Starsky's body was undisciplined. Hutch couldn't help but cry at the lifeless form that was his buddy, at the sight of him with his arms and legs and head down like a broken doll. Something wasn't right, definitely.

"David? Please?" Parry's voice came softly from behind. He had been able to handle just a small whisper, barely. He couldn't accept that he had lost his David before everything would have even started.

He wouldn't let him die.

He wouldn't let that happen.

Nonetheless his desires, Parry could feel in Starsky's chest the extra softness, the lack of usual definition and resistance. As if his chest had been shattered, and he had overcome Starsky's hard resiliency. Parry could tell by simple contact that he was not a live person. That the muscles of the body had lost their elasticity and their needed strength. And he realized that the heart was a muscle.

He was aware that the organs of the body were deprived of blood that he was losing the so vital contents slowly; dripping slowly in the basement's floor.

He thought that the lungs were organs.

He took into account that the brain wasn't receiving orders, that it was paralyzed. The oxygen wasn't traveling through the veins and the arteries. Not anymore.

He was dying.

_"He isn't breathing,_" he thought.

"Fuck, David don't do this to me!" he groaned at him. "Hell no!" He pulled him up from his drifting torso and attacked Starsky's mouth, pinched the nose so he could open the airways.

It was no use.

From his privileged point of view, Hutch could see the dark head of his best friend who bobbed from side to side. The beloved head that was being manipulated, adapted to Parry's entire satisfaction, so lacking in his self-will, that he thought that the image would be forever etched in his memory.

_"What's going on? Starsk?_" Hutch couldn't tell aloud but thought.

Parry checked the pulse, found none.

This time, it was not only a respiratory failure but an overdose too.

"Hutchinson, Come on! He OD", he shouted desperately.

"What do you want me to do, you brain dead dolt? I'm tied to this fucking chair, you son of a bitch, you forgot? You come and untie me!" Hutch madly shouted as he kept crawling, but Parry didn't answer.

There wasn't time. He was all business.

Parry took off his sweater and put it under Starsky's thorax to elevate it and to tilt down his head. He needed to do it to open his airways.

So he got him up from his torso.

Parry started crawling over the table.

He opened Starsky's mouth and pinched his nose and raised his jaw. "You know CPR, you dammit? It's about time the second phase of the game begins," the diabolic man shouted to the blond cop.

_"Second phase?"_ Hutch thought. _How can one man be so cold?"_

Parry started mouth to mouth breathing.

_"Second phase? How can someone be so cruel and heartless at times like these, to feel so detached from the tragedy?"_ Hutch thought.

"You, motherfucker!" the blond managed to say aloud.

The Welsh realized that he would not waste his time answering Hutchinson, neither he had the time. He could not insist upon showing him who in charge was or who had the power either. Therefore, he stayed silent. It was more than clear that Parry was deciding everything, even life, and death at the moment.

He had all the answers.

Evil happened to them, to the poor detectives.

At that time, all the glory was his.

Starsky's life hung in the balance and was in his hands. Parry didn't care; he was working like crazy to save him. He had no time to lose in the stupid man while he remembered frantically.

'The lungs have to be blown twice in rapid succession every 15 seconds.'

_"Come on, David!"_ He thought

"Come on, David!" Parry said.

"Starsky, please… buddy, please come back to me!" Hutch cried in pain.

Parry felt for a carotid pulse.

Nothing.

In one swift movement, Parry took out of his back pocket, the knife and tossed it towards Hutch. "I need you, now! You cut your ropes. This isn't working!"

Hutch had managed to untie his hands and caught the blade in the air. The blond-haired man started cutting the ropes. His wrists were bleeding, but he could not control the reckless movements, and he even cut himself with a razor, he was all frenzy.

Parry performed cardiac massage, and he recalled… 'Cardiac massage should depress the breastbone 2 inches at a rate of 80-100 times per minute.'

Thirty compressions before returning to ventilate twice.

One. Two. "Come on, Come on."

"Oh damn, this is not working Hutchinson, you hurry up! Get over here."

The minutes had gone, or he was in a jiffy, nobody could dare count. But suddenly, Parry felt Hutch's eyes all over him and all over Starsky. Blank and speechless, staring at his side. Hutch was perplexed and frozen in the place, too. He was mesmerized in front of the body dying. The blond was shaking all over, and he was stuttering. He hadn't witnessed the absence before. He hadn't seen the dear body in that way. Deprived of life. He couldn't react either. When Starsky arrested, back in '79, he wasn't there, only Huggy and Dobey were at Memorial at the time, and now he felt so useless, he started saying aloud. "Starsk, I love you, Starsk. You know what you mean to me. Don't you dare leave me, please?" He was shouting, "If you hear me, buddy, don't you go anywhere!"

"Oh, For Christ's sake, you are sublimely idiotic. You make me so sick, Hutchinson! You are not going to be any help like this. You are brainless. Stop reciting this crap and go and give me the adrenaline! Now! The adrenaline!" Parry shouted enraged; "you are stupid," he thought.

"You don't know about me and thee," Hutch said reflexively while Parry compressed the lax and undisciplined chest.

The Welsh was sweating for the extent of the effort when Hutch appeared carrying the little bottle. "Gimme the adrenaline, come on. I have to give him the shot now, immediately. He looks like a corpse; he is a fucking corpse! Now, dammit!"

Hutch couldn't take off his eyes out of his friend, it was the image of Starsky after Gunther. "Oh no!" And he was paralyzed.

"Come on, you move Hutchinson, hurry up! Give it to me" Parry shouted frantically.

Trembling, Hutch took the bottle with the syringe and gave it to Parry. The Welsh tossed a bit and then injected him. One shot.

Straight into Starsky's heart.

And Starsky rose from the deads on the table.

"Oh, God! Oh, My God! We've got him back. Yes! That's good, good…" Parry collapsed over Starsky's soft and tender belly. "I thought I'd lost you. Thanks, thank, God!"

The blonde-haired man started choking, inconsolable trying to retain the sobs and releasing the tension; he could barely breathe. "Thank you, thank you... thank you, Parry," those were Hutch's words. He was still hypnotized at Starsky's side. He was touching his friend who was still motionless, and utterly cold after the initial impact.

_"He was thanking me?"_ Parry thought and couldn't help but laugh. However, on top of getting such an unusual response, the Welsh couldn't help but feel envious and overwhelmed by the sincere love these two men shared, the deep love they professed to each other.

It was that same thing, which made him feel a little bit sad too.

But yet again, neither had he come to this world to make things any better, nor it was the time to philosophize about the meaning of life or friendship.

His reason, his sense, was still dying there, over that table, and he had to keep a steady pace if he wanted to get him back and fully recover.

Suddenly, and when the effects of the adrenaline took over, Starsky started shaking. The brunet opened his eyes wide and looked as if he was possessed and in shock. He had foam in his mouth, and while Hutch held his trembling body, he whined acutely.

Starsky made an instinctive and profound cry. He felt his heart being shattered, and he rose his arm to his chest. Parry noticed Hutch's face of terror. It would never be erased from his mind. Hutch was scared; he didn't understand. Starsky was still shaking all over, barely aware and pressing his own heart as if in pain.

"Now give me the sodium bicarbonate, come on, and hurry up!" Parry barked at Hutch; he was still clutched to his partner but couldn't stop him from convulsing though he hugged him with all his being trying to ease his suffering. "He needs it, ignorant! I can't believe you went to Med School. Now give me the sodium bicarbonate. You move!" He shouted almost scaring Hutch, and the blond-haired cop released his partner's body and gave him the syringe with the bottle.

He shot Starsky again.

"Why did you go and do that for again, now?" Hutch couldn't understand, and he asked Parry, his arms holding his trembling partner again.

"It's 11.30 AM," he said looking at his watch... "And I need him alive, for 15 more hours at least. Fully alive. David isn't out of the woods yet, and you should help him recover instead of making these stupid questions."

Hutch let loose of his friend, dejected. He couldn't move, and Parry took over.

After a while, after Starsky offered some resistance since he was seemingly confused, dizzy and agitated, Madoc was able to put his shirt back and lay him on the bed. He gently accompanied his body, talking to his ear, convincing him, in his blurred mind, that he would better be dragged on the board again. The captor helped Starsky to lay down, and this time, he covered him with a blanket to keep him warm. Parry hooked him again to the heart monitor and the oxygen tank to prevent any unexpected arrhythmia. Then, he sat and rested by the unfortunate man's side.

Seeing the angry green line on the heart monitor, Parry rolled up the brunet's left sleeve and injected him once again, this time with the Lidocaine. He wanted to prevent the increasing rate that his heart had started taking.

After a little while, he saw how the poor David started to give up and relaxed, slowly.

However, and despite all their efforts, the man at their mercy looked like dead again.

Everything had happened in a matter of minutes, so Hutch's despair started growing immeasurably; he wondered what was going on. The blond-haired man was overcome with horror at the ghastly spectacle, and he was scared, so he asked Parry what was happening with his partner, why he looked so sick. The sinister man scratched his head and said. "He needs more time to recover, if I give him more drugs, I'm gonna kill him. Now, we're gonna let him rest" he said as if nothing.

However, Starsky's deterioration was evident, and Parry wondered secretly how much his body could withstand. He shook his head and released the air he had left in his lungs. Parry was so worn out that he sprawled in a rickety old armchair that was beside the makeshift bed where his victim laid above and sighed, touching his own face.

He was exhausted.

He stayed that way for a little while, thinking.

The most silencer of the silences took place.

Hutch scrutinized every inch of his friend's body.

He saw the Welsh, also looking at his friend. The assailant did it so lovingly that while doing so, Hutch couldn't help the pain anymore and he asked Parry the dreaded question.

"You are gonna kill him?" Hutch didn't look at Parry's direction because he feared, he dared know the answer, and he felt desolate.

"Never said I wouldn't, Hutchinson." Madoc stood up again and turned to where Starsky was. "I'm glad you're back David;" he caressed his damp curls, "you really are a good sport; this time I really thought I'd lost you."

He looked at the body over the table, checked his vitals and pulled the shackles again, forcibly taking Starsky's arms, out from the cover to restrain them. This time, just his hands.

"Why are you doing that for? He isn't going to go anywhere." Hutch asked in disbelief.

"I'm gonna put the cuffs on him again, what else? I love watching him all tied for me no matter what, and I have to pee." He pulled a crazy face, took the stairs and started leaving the room but then he stopped, turned around and said. "You can stay with him, just in case… you know. I think that he's gonna be all right. He's tough, so I gave him a hell of a lot, but well, shit happens! And If something happens, I want you to knock the door with all your strength, okay? I have to prepare a few things before the end, but I'll be back soon". He flipped the shackles' keys through the air, grimaced and closed the door behind.

Hutch collapsed in the same chair that Parry had been sitting before, utterly desolated.

_"You can stay with him, just in case…"_ Hutch remembered Parry's lurid words that echoed in his head and panicked.

The words were lingering in the air just like his past ghosts.

He saw Starsky dying, every time. He closed his eyes and saw him dying though he was breathing, and he could hear him, he felt he was dead. His respirations had regained that strange rhythm; they had been doing lately. The ominous sound that was better than nothing, he thought. Though his haunted appearance and his skin shone with a sheen of sweat for the strenuous event he had endured, Starsky was still alive, and besides that, besides everything, he seemed peaceful.

Even healthy, as well.

Hutch felt a rush of relief as he realized that there were still breaths stored in his dear friend. "Stupid comfort," he thought.

The only potential threat had already happened; they had lost him, and he had been back, but he knew the sick man had been carried only by the sheer force of love.

His love and even Parry's love made him come back.

The incoming events were going to be deceitful, to say the least. Who knows what the next hours would be like? So he realized that, since they were alone, that was just the right time to tell his friend what he meant to him. How much he loved him. The only one thing there was still left to say though many times he had said it before. Hutch broke from the hunched position he was sitting at in the bizarre upholstery chair. He made his way to the rusty table in which Starsky laid.

Both of them were hardly existing.

The flaxen-haired man touched his partner. Starsky was frozen stiff, but Hutch realized that he was awake. "Hey buddy, are you cold? Do you want my jacket? You always loved this jack..." he couldn't finish.

Starsky turned his head to his buddy and gave him a little smile, one lonely tear was rolling down his face, and Hutch dried it with his hand. Starsky looked down and turned his face upwards again, he was fatigued and closed his eyes.

"Starsk?" Hutch asked, adoringly, but his friend didn't say anything. He just couldn't.

Hutch realized that there weren't much more things to say, anyway. That's why he slowly pulled Starsky's left sleeve down to keep his arm warm after Parry's injection and started caressing him, lovingly, and whispering in his ear. "Buddy, I just want to tell you something. I am not going to go anywhere. I'll be here, all the time with you, by your side."

"Okay," was all that Starsky could handle.

The roughness of his grave tone struck Hutch into silence; he nodded. He put his left hand up to his mouth, instantly and controlled a sob. His throat felt tight as he struggled to think of another place, to another time.

He felt selfish.

He had expected to hear Starsky say a whole lot of things, but then he realized that he had his breaths counted, that he just didn't have enough strength.

Sweat began to trickle down Hutch's neck and mingled with his tears. He leaned his head on his friend's forehead and gave him a kiss, and then embraced him.

Hutch put his left arm over Starsky's chest, covered him with a blanket and rested alongside with him, waiting.

They were like that; he didn't know for how long until Parry came back.

He was carrying the all too familiar Dragon's template.

It was 1.30 PM, on Saturday, the 27th of August 1983.

_To be continued..._


End file.
